)NQUERING FORCES 
OF THE KINGDOM 



SETH : WARD 



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Conquering Forces of 
the Kingdom 



AND 

Other Sermons 



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BISHOP SETH WARD, D.D. 

WITH 



AN APPRECIA TION OF HIS 
CHARACTER AND MINISTRY BY 

EDWIN DTMOUZON, D.B., LL.D. 
i 

0?ie of the Bishops of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church, South 



Nashville, Tenn. ; Dallas, Tex. 

Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South 

Smith & Lamar, Agents 

1911 



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Copyright, ign 

BY 

Edwin D. Mouzon 



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©CI. A 297921 



THE YOUNG PREACHERS 

OF THE 

METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH 

WHOM HE LOVED AND WHOM I LOVE 

THIS BOOK IS DEDICA TED 

'Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand be- 
fore kings; he shall not stand before mean 
men.'"' (Prov. xxii. 2Q.) 



IN MEMORIAM. 

Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 
Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 

Believing where we cannot prove ; 

Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; 

Thou madest Life in man and brute ; 

Thou madest Death ; and lo, thy foot 
Is on the skull which thou hast made. 

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 
Thou madest man, he knows not why, 
He thinks he was not made to die ; 

And thou hast made him: thou art just 

Forgive my grief for one removed, 
Thy creature, whom I found so fair. 
I trust he lives in thee, and there 

I find him worthier to be loved. 

(5) 



PREFACE. 
These sermons are given to the Church be- 
cause it is believed that they are well worth 
printing and reading. The average sermon, be- 
ing anecdotal and hortatory, is neither instruc- 
tive nor edifying when read, however pleasing 
it may have been when delivered. But when 
men of scholarship and spiritual insight write, 
their sermons are always read with profit. Of 
course, the best thing about any sermon is the 
man. The man is the sermon. Christian truth, 
experienced by a man, living in a man, and get- 
ting utterance through a man — this is the ser- 
mon. The manly presence, the forceful gesture, 
the illuminated countenance, the voice ringing 
with the note of sincerity — these are not here. 
But here are the great truths which Seth Ward 
held dear, truths on which he fed his own soul 
and with which he fed others, truths upon which 
he ventured his whole life, truths which brought 
that life nearer to Christian perfection than men 
often come in this world, truths which gave to 
him a beautiful and triumphant death. 

(7) 



8 PREFACE. 

My work as editor has been greatly lightened 
by Mrs. Ward, who, after I had selected these 
fourteen sermons for publication, went over 
them with her own hand, getting them ready 
for the press. Edwin D. Mouzon. 

San Antonio, Tex., August 17, 191 1. 



CONTENTS. 

Page 

"That Friend of Mine Who Lives in God:" An 
Appreciation n 

I. 

Conquering Forces of the Kingdom 61 

II. 
The Kingdom to Come yj 

III. 
The Good Samaritan in the Twentieth Century. 93 

IV. 
The Armor of Light 113 

V. 
The World's Epochal Hour 129 

VI. 
The Bread of Life 145 

VII. 
The Value of Faith 161 

VIII. 

The Living Christ and the World's Hope 177 

IX. 

The Ultimate Basis of Christian Optimism 189 

X. 
The Temptation of Jesus 203 

(9) 



IO CONQUERING FORCES. 

XL Page 

The Christian Ministry 221 

XII. 
A Divine View of Human Life 237 

XIII. 
The Greatness of Service 251 

XIV. 
The Rest That Jesus Gives , . . 267 



"THAT FRIEND OF MINE WHO LIVES 
IN GOD:" AN APPRECIATION. 

A GOOD ancestry is one of God's best gifts 
to man. St. Paul based no claim to Divine 
acceptance upon it ; but he lets us know that he 
was "of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Ben- 
jamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews." It has be- 
come a commonplace among us that not who 
a man's father was, but what the man himself is, 
is the important matter. We should not, how- 
ever, on this account, overlook the fact that 
in the commandment God has promised to show 
mercy unto a thousand generations of them that 
love him and keep his commandments. And 
when a man has attained eminence in goodness 
and in usefulness, we shall miss some of the 
most important lessons which his life has to teach 
if we fail to inquire concerning the character 
and standing of his forbears. 

The Ancestry and Boyhood Home of Seth Ward. 

Bishop Seth Ward had in his veins the best 

blood of the South. His mother, Sarah Ann 

(n) 



12 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Wyche, was a member of an old and respected 
Virginia family. For centuries the name Seth 
appears in the history of the Ward family. The 
father of the Bishop, Samuel Goode Ward, was 
himself the son of Seth Ward and Martha Nor- 
vell Ward, daughter of William Norvell, of 
Lynchburg, Va. The Bishop's grandfather was 
the son of Seth Ward and Mary Goode Ward; 
and he was the son of Col. Seth Ward, Justice 
of Henrico County in 1745 and of Chesterfield 
in 1749, and later Sheriff of Chesterfield and a 
member of the House of Burgesses. From him 
the line ascends thus: Benjamin Ward, Capt. 
Seth Ward, Richard Ward, Seth Ward, the 
founder of the family in America, who is shown 
by the records to have secured a piece of land 
in Henrico County, Va., May 30, 1634. He was 
certainly related to Bishop Seth Ward, of the 
Church of England, being probably not a son, 
but a nephew. 

Samuel Goode Ward came to Texas in the 
year 1837, shortly after the Battle of San Jacinto, 
in which the Texans won their independence 
from Mexico. Later he moved to Leon County 
and secured land for a small farm. Here, out 



AN APPRECIATION. 



J 3 



of large post oak logs, hewn on all four sides, he 
built a good, roomy house. The site of the house 
was picturesque. Above, at a short distance, was 
the spring; about three hundred yards in front 
was Pigeon Roost Creek — in spite of its name, 
one of the most beautiful creeks in that part of 
the State, clear to the bottom, with the little fish 
swimming in its cool water. Here, at "Spring- 
wood," as the home was called, Seth Ward was 
born on November 15, 1858. Samuel G. Ward 
had been educated in the best schools of his na- 
tive State. When a student in the University of 
Virginia, in company with other students, he 
had enlisted to fight Indians in the West. He 
had traveled in Europe, and had seen service in 
the war with Mexico, having been wounded at 
Buena Vista and having been present at the fall 
of Mexico City. But he made no success as a 
farmer. He was out of sympathy with his sur- 
roundings, a man who through some disappoint- 
ment or misfortune had missed his way in life. 
He had brought with him to the West a good 
collection of the best books, and leading maga- 
zines of that period came regularly to his home. 
Much of his time he remained at home and 



14 CONQUERING FORCES. 

read; so much so that his neighbors would 
sometimes say: "If Ward would pay more at- 
tention to business and read less, he would be 
better off financially." But he loved his family 
and looked with tender pride upon his children, 
and especially upon Seth as he grew toward 
young manhood. 

Good men have good mothers. There is 
scarcely an exception to this law. There was 
no exception in the case of Bishop Ward. Sarah 
Ann Wyche was intelligent and cultured, a 
woman of refined manners and of great dignity. 
Her neighbors tell how self-controlled she was 
and how kind in her speech and conduct. She 
was a lover of flowers ; nowhere in Leon County 
grew such beautiful flowers as in her garden. 
Eight myrtle bushes still remain where the flower 
garden once stood. Though her home was the 
home of the poor, an atmosphere of neatness 
and quiet refinement pervaded everything. Not 
until his later years did her husband become a 
member of the Church; but she had been for 
years an earnest Christian and a faithful member 
of the Methodist Church. She is reported to 
have been "mighty in prayer," and a woman 



AN APPRECIATION. 15 

"fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." As her 
home was in an out-of-the-way part of the coun- 
try, and as there was no Sunday school near 
enough for the little children to attend, she con- 
ducted Sunday school with her own children at 
home. When Bishop Ward was lying on his 
deathbed in far-away Japan, he spoke of "the 
God who was with him at his mother's knee." 
His memory went back then to the home of his 
childhood. In such a home Seth Ward passed 
his youth, assisting his mother in her work about 
the house, and later making a full hand on the 
farm, working with his ax and plow and hoe. 
It was amusing to hear him tell how, when 
grown to be quite a youth, he one day drove an 
ox team into the town of Bryan, the first town 
of any size he had seen. Said he: "Bryan, then 
a town of about two thousand, looked as big to 
me as New York afterwards did the first time 
I visited that city." 

His Conversion and Early Education. 
While not a scholar in the technical sense, it is 
simple truth to say that Bishop Ward was one 
of our most scholarly preachers. It will sur- 
prise many to learn that he never attended col- 



16 CONQUERING FORCES. 

lege, never attended high school, and possibly, 
all told, was never more than twelve months in 
attendance upon the country schools of Leon 
County. His parents were too poor to send him 
to college, and he was needed at home to assist 
his father in the work on the farm. 

How, then, are we to account for Seth Ward? 
How are we going to explain the fact that he so 
soon became one of the leading men of his 
Church? Or how explain the interesting fact 
that he was already much better educated than 
the average preacher of his years when he en- 
tered the Annual Conference? We shall not try 
to explain it fully. No man can explain a man. 
There is something about personality which re- 
fuses to be tabulated and classified. You may 
talk about heredity and environment, you may 
use learned and scientific terminology; but the 
man himself you do not get out of these things ; 
and when you have said all, there is still a secret 
which refuses to be told. "As the earth was 
fluid and plastic in the hands of the Creator, 
so it has ever been to as much of God's attributes 
as we bring to it." This, perhaps, is as near as 
we may hope to come to the secret. Many boys 



AN APPRECIATION. 



17 



have grown to manhood under circumstances 
similar to those which surrounded Seth Ward, 
and have spent their lives in ignorance and use- 
lessness. But what man has done man can do; 
and this is the inspiring message which the life 
of Seth Ward brings to the young men who read 
this book. 

However, it is easy to see the influence of 
both father and mother in the making of this 
man. Samuel G. Ward was a better-educated 
man than any who were teaching in the country 
schools of that early day in Texas. His knowl- 
edge of good books and his love of them, the 
son certainly got from the father. Evidently it 
was the father who taught the son to write ; for 
with difficulty can the handwriting of the one 
be distinguished from that of the other. But 
that quiet dignity which all observed in him, and 
that perfect self-control which none of us re- 
members to have seen disturbed — these he owed 
to his mother. And, above all else, it was his 
mother's influence which brought him to Christ. 
In August, 1871, under the ministry of the Rev. 
L. J. Wright, he was soundly converted and 
joined the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. 



18 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Of him it may be truly said that the child was 
father of the man and that all his days were 
bound each to each by natural piety. The Rev. 
S. E. Hager, who was constantly with him dur- 
ing his fatal illness in Japan, writes: "Though 
his mind was partially deranged, no utterance 
that could offend a woman of the most delicate 
taste and refinement ever came from his lips." 
Dr. Miller, the attending physician, simply gave 
utterance to what we all knew when he said: 
"There was nothing ugly in that mind to come 
out." From childhood his life had been clean. 
Prof. F. C. Scott, the only teacher besides his 
parents that he is known to have had, writes 
me: "When Seth Ward entered my school, he 
was about nineteen years of age. He was then 
the most advanced pupil in the community. 
When he came to my school, he had already 
attempted poetry. I recall his reading to me a 
poetical composition by himself entitled 'The 
Fall of the Alamo.' His father was very proud 
of this composition. When Seth would be 
called upon to read it to visitors, his father 
would exclaim : 'See what my boy can do !' " 
In the community there was an old-fashioned 



AN APPRECIATION. 



19 



debating society in which he took great interest ; 
here he learned to think and speak while stand- 
ing on his feet. 

Thus the years passed. He was never un- 
employed and never triflingly employed. The 
highest ideals were before him and the grace of 
God was upon him. What he studied in the 
evening he thought over next day as he plowed 
in the field. And so his twenty-third birthday 
drew near. Plowing one day in the field, he be- 
gan to think: "I am now nearly twenty-three 
years of age; I am a man, grown. I have been 
thinking for a long time that God wants me to 
preach the gospel. If I am going to do any- 
thing in the world, it is time for me to begin." 
So he left his plow, and in November, 1881, 
was admitted on trial in the Northwest Texas 
Conference, at Waxahachie, Bishop Kavanaugh 
presiding. On his way to the seat of the Con- 
ference, he wrote in his diary: "I greatly feel 
my loss in being deprived of the benefit of edu- 
cation; but I am resolved, by God's help, to 
fight a good fight, to do some good, and to lead 
a life worth living." How well he carried into 
effect that resolution, the whole Church knows ! 



20 CONQUERING FORCES. 

The Active Work of the*Ministry, His University. 

At the close of his first year, by the change of 
the boundary line, he became a member of the 
Texas Conference; and remained a member of 
that Conference until called to the office of Gen- 
eral Superintendent of the Church. His appoint- 
ments as an itinerant preacher were as follows: 
1882, West Corsicana Circuit; 1883, junior 
preacher on Centerville Circuit ; 1884, Kosse Cir- 
cuit; 1885-86, Calvert and Hearne; 1887-90, St. 
James Church, Galveston; 1891-94, Hunts ville 
Station; 1895-96, presiding elder of Houston 
District; 1897-99, Shearn Church, Houston; 
1890, Secretary of Education for the Texas Con- 
ference; 1901-02, Central Church, Galveston; 
1902-06, Assistant Missionary Secretary for the 
General Board. At the General Conference 
meeting in Birmingham, Ala., in 1906 he was 
elected bishop. 

Whatever Seth Ward attempted, he did well. 
He was always going forward, never back- 
ward, growing in knowledge and in grace. I 
have here before me ; as I write, a book in which 
he preserved the outlines and sketches of his 
sermons. The book bears the date 1886, the 



AN APPRECIATION. 21 

year after the young man had been ordained 
elder. Here are some of his subjects: "The 
Importance of Obedience/' "Seeking to Save," 
"The Withered Hand," "The Exaltation of 
Christ," "Heart Purity," "The New Passover," 
"Conversion," "It Is Finished," "The Power of 
the Gospel," "A Growing Church." I have been 
turning over the pages and taking the subjects 
just as I came to them. Such were the great 
themes that this young preacher was thinking 
about — the greatest themes possible. 

The themes that a young preacher preaches 
about and the books that he reads during the first 
four or five years of his ministry will shape and 
determine the entire ministry of that man. Some 
men never come to maturity, and the reason is 
this: maturity does not lie in the direction in 
which they are going. Let a man continue to go 
along the road that Seth Ward traveled, and you 
cannot put any limit to the possible development 
of that man. 

When he had served two years on the Calvert 
and Hearne charge, and was sent to St. James 
Church, Galveston, the local newspaper had this 
to say : "We state but the plain, unvarnished truth 



22 CONQUERING FORCES. 

in saying that Mr. Ward's departure from among 
us is deeply regretted by all our people. He was 
regarded as an exceptionally good and pure man, 
highly gifted intellectually; and he filled to the 
fullest measure the popular conception of a wor- 
thy and consistent minister." His four years' 
pastorate at St. James Church marked the most 
prosperous period in the history of that Church. 
The church building was brought to completion, 
a comfortable parsonage was built, and the work 
prospered in every way. The four years which 
followed at Huntsville were years of growth for 
the preacher as well as for the Church. Here 
was cemented the friendship between him and 
Professor H. Carr Pritchett, President of the 
Sam Houston Normal Institute, a friendship 
which meant much to both. Professor Pritchett 
used to tell how, upon taking charge of the Church 
at Huntsville, Seth Ward came to him and re- 
quested his assistance in selecting and reading the 
best books. "But," added that well-known edu- 
cator, "at the end of four years Ward could tell 
me what I ought to read." When he was appoint- 
ed presiding elder and a friend congratulated him 
on his appointment, this was his reply: "I shall 



AN APPRECIATION. 23 

endeavor to make the best presiding elder possi- 
ble." In this spirit he took hold on every duty, 
with an eye single to God's glory. 

But it is not my purpose to write the story of 
his entire ministry. I am trying, just as far as 
possible, to make known the secret of his life, so 
as to show to the younger ministers of the Church 
how this man grew. He continued to grow and 
never stopped. In him was fulfilled the promise 
of Christ: "Whosoever shall lose his life for my 
sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." 
With unselfish devotion he gave himself to Christ 
and his Church, and fullness of life was given him 
in return. We are able to say of him what John 
Richard Green declared would be said of him- 
self : "He died learning/' 

His Interest in Christian Education. 
Where Seth Ward was presiding elder or 
preacher in charge, the coming together of the 
preachers took the character of a preachers' in- 
stitute, where great books were studied and where 
methods of work were discussed. The cause of 
Christian education never had a warmer or wiser 
friend in Texas than he. At the session of his 



24 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Conference in 1899, ^ e delivered an address on 
"Education" which wonderfully stirred the great 
congregation, and which the bishop presiding pro- 
nounced the greatest address on Christian edu- 
cation that he had ever heard. The logical thing 
was his appointment as Secretary of Education 
for the following year, that he might lead in the 
Twentieth Century Campaign. This marks the 
beginning of a new era in educational affairs in 
Texas. To this, the money raised under his lead- 
ership contributed much. But more important 
still was the awakening of a deeper and wider and 
more intelligent interest in Christian education. 
During the summer of that year he spent some 
months in the University of Chicago, seeking thus 
to put himself in touch with larger movements and 
to gain a more scholarly grasp of fundamental 
facts and principles. No one institution in Texas 
has done more for the preachers of this State 
than the Summer School of Theology at South- 
western University. For years this has been the 
leading preachers' institute in the Church. Seth 
Ward was its originator and first Dean; and 
through his influence it continues to make its im- 
press upon the preachers of his native State. The 



AN APPRECIATION. 25 

young preacher never had a better friend than 
he. Having come up from obscurity, having 
toiled day and night, having educated himself 
without the assistance of academy or college, his 
great desire was to smooth the way for others and 
to give to them the opportunities which to him 
had been denied. In a sermon preached in the 
interest of Southwestern University occur these 
words: "There must be a stronger and better- 
equipped ministry. Upon this statement I wish 
to place special emphasis. Not for one moment 
do I depreciate men who now occupy our pul- 
pits. Some of them have overcome grave diffi- 
culties in their earlier life and are now render- 
ing brilliant and successful service to the Church 
and the world. All honor to such men! The 
greatest need of the Church is a wise and strong 
leadership ; and that leadership must be found in 
a divinely called and properly equipped ministry. 
/ ask no greater privilege than to have some part 
in giving to Texas Methodism for the years to 
come a ministry that will lead in all the great 
movements for the uplift of the race and the 
evangelization of the world." 

President Robert S. Hyer, of Southwestern 



26 CONQUERING FORCES. 

University, wrote as follows in the Texas Chris- 
tian Advocate: 

Others will speak of Bishop Ward as a preacher, 
pastor, and bishop ; of his eminent fitness for the many 
positions of honor that he held ; of the love that he had 
for his work; of the abundance and success of his la- 
bors ; of his great gifts and his great heart. But I shall 
ask, as President of Southwestern University, the privi- 
lege of telling of my loss of a personal friend and a 
wise counselor. In all the work of the university he 
was deeply interested. For many years he was officially 
connected with it as a trustee. Though not a college 
graduate, there were none of the trustees who knew 
better than he what a college should be, a real seat of 
learning. Second to none in his comprehension of how 
wide and varied should be its departments of study, he 
appreciated the work of each department as though he 
himself had undergone its training and discipline. But, 
above all of his fellow trustees, he most emphasized 
the importance of making special provision for the edu- 
cation of ministers. Possibly this in some measure was 
due to the fact that he himself had not had the advan- 
tage of college training, and that, almost unaided and 
alone, he had wrought out for himself those splendid 
intellectual possessions which usually come only as the 
gift of a college. I may add that he was the only self- 
educated man I have ever known. By this I mean that 
through years of intimate acquaintance I never discov- 
ered any evidence, save his own statement, of the fact 
that he had not received thorough college training. 



AN APPRECIATION. 2 J 

His interest in Christian education had be- 
come an enthusiasm, a passion. He urged the 
establishment of a Department of Theology at 
Southwestern University, so as to provide for 
the better training of the young preachers of the 
great Southwest. He had already begun to se- 
cure funds for the endowment of this depart- 
ment. Not long before he went on his last jour- 
ney he said to President Hyer: "I wish I could re- 
main in Texas and complete that $100,000. Just 
as soon as I return I shall complete the work." 
When he did not come back, the trustees of the 
university named a certain Sunday as "Seth Ward 
Memorial Day ;" and, by collections taken all over 
Texas that day, carried "The Seth Ward Me- 
morial Endowment Fund" well toward comple- 
tion. His great desire has been realized. He has 
been granted no small part in giving to Texas 
Methodism for the years to come "a ministry that 
will lead in all the great movements for the uplift 
of the race and the evangelization of the world." 

The Man and the Minister. 
His election as Missionary Secretary intro- 
duced him to the Church at large. "How can a 
man be hid?" Everywhere that he went his 



28 CONQUERING FORCES. 

personal dignity, his humility, his brotherliness, 
his mastery of details, his insight into principles, 
his deep piety, his sanity, his forcefulness as a 
speaker— all these qualities marked him out as 
a man who could be trusted with the highest 
responsibilities. For such men God is waiting. 
Seth Ward was never dreaming that his name 
would be mentioned in connection with the high- 
est office in the gift of the Church; and when the 
great responsibilities of the episcopacy were laid 
upon him, he was humbled and grew holier; his 
heart grew warmer than ever with love to God 
and love to man, and he surrendered himself 
with a yet mere entire devotion to Christ and his 
Church. 

Serious-Minded, but a Brotherly Man and an 
Optimist. 
Seth Ward was a serious-minded man. He 
told no jokes. He played no games. He was 
a very poor story-teller. But this does not mean 
that he was either uncompanionable or sad. On 
the contrary, he was one of the most companion- 
able of men. When in his society, you felt that 
you were in the society of a brother. South- 
western University had conferred upon him the 



AN APPRECIATION. 2 g 

degree of Doctor of Divinity. He appreciated 
this recognition, but he cared little for the title. 
He knew perfectly well that titles are but empty 
things which wait for men to fill them; and 
after he had been made bishop, he still liked to 
have his friends call him "Brother Ward." When 
you called him over the telephone, he would an- 
swer : "This is Brother Ward." And sometimes, 
when one would meet him at a railway station 
and ask, "Is this Bishop Ward?" he would an- 
swer, "Yes, this is Brother Ward;" and that is 
what he always was — "Brother Ward." And 
while he was serious, he was never sad or de- 
jected. His creed — his personal faith — would 
not permit him to become despondent. He be- 
lieved in God and in the triumph of God's king- 
dom. He believed in the good and in the better 
and in the best. He was an optimist in the Chris- 
tian sense of that word. He was 

(Xie who never turned his back, but marched breast for- 
ward; 
Never doubted clouds would break; 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong 
would triumph; 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, sleep to 
wake. 



3 o CONQUERING FORCES. 

The word "optimism" was often on his tongue, 
and the thing itself had found incarnation in his 
life. Read his sermons. Read especially the 
sermons entitled 'The Value of Faith" and "The 
Ultimate Basis of Christian Optimism," and that 
noble sermon on the "Conquering Forces of the 
Kingdom," in which he declares : 

The kingdoms of evil are doomed. All Babylons shall 
fall. In whatever form evil may embody itself, in what- 
ever position it may intrench itself, it is doomed. There 
are no "necessary evils." The liquor power shall go 
down. A godless materialism, that knows neither Cre- 
ator nor Redeemer, shall do down. Intrenched heathen- 
ism, that casts its baleful shadow over two-thirds of the 
human race, shall go down. All shall go down. All 
shall go down! The ear of faith hears the rumble and 
crash of their overthrow echoing down through unborn 
centuries. Silently and ceaselessly as the sunlight, the re- 
sistless forces of Christ's kingdom shall go forth to sub- 
due and transform the earth. Human history shall end, 
as the Apocalypse ends, with a joyous and triumphant 
song that shall fill all the earth and ring through all the 
heavens : "Alleluiah, for the Lord God omnipotent reign- 
eth !" 

But his was no easy-going optimism which 
believes that everything will turn out all right 
anyhow. He knew at what price the world's re- 



AN APPRECIATION. 31 

demption has been secured. He knew what the 
forces are which shall finally conquer the world : 
"And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, 
and by the word of their testimony; and they 
loved not their lives unto death." He was there- 
fore, as I have said, a serious-minded man, giv- 
ing himself with all earnestness to the bringing 
in of this grand event. 

The Preacher of the Gospel. 
Bishop Ward loved to preach. When, lying 
fatally ill at Kobe, he had been told that he was 
nearing the end of his days on earth, he said: 
"I would love to have strength of body, and 
clearness of mind, and vision of soul to preach 
once or twice more before I go hence." He 
never brought unbeaten oil into the sanctuary. 
He never trusted to the inspiration of an occa- 
sion. He knew what he intended to say before 
he entered the pulpit ; but he was not dependent 
upon the written sermon. He seldom took notes 
with him into the pulpit, and in his later pastor- 
ates he did not write so much as in the earlier 
years of his ministry. Indeed, we have looked in 
vain among his papers for some of his most ef- 
fective sermons. His taste was severe. He used 



32 CONQUERING FORCES. 

few adjectives; he seldom used anecdote; he 
made few quotations. The greatness of his 
themes, the clearness of his thought, the strength 
of his convictions, the note of absolute sincerity 
sounding in every utterance, the forcefulness of 
his presentation — these were the outstanding 
characteristics of the preacher. His defects were 
a somewhat too close adherence to what he had 
prepared and a seeming unwillingness to let him- 
self go. 

Three elements make up the Christian life : the 
intellectual, the mystical, and the ethical. One 
would say that while the mystical was, of course, 
present, still the predominant elements in his 
life and preaching were the intellectual and the 
ethical. When his preaching moved men power- 
fully, it was the truth that moved them. If he 
appealed to the emotions, it was always the ap- 
peal that the truth makes. He was growing con- 
tinually in spirituality and in freedom ; and while 
the mystical was not prominent in him, yet possi- 
bly no man except Enoch Marvin has made so 
deep an impression on the Church for saintliness 
of life. At his first Conference, the North Geor- 
gia, God set his seal upon him. Those who 



AN APPRECIATION. 33 

heard his sermon Sunday morning will never for- 
get it nor the scene which followed. Men shout- 
ed aloud the praises of God and crowded into the 
pulpit to grasp the preacher's hand. 

The Freedom of His Faith. 
In writing of Bishop Ward as a preacher, I 
must speak of the freedom of his faith. He 
loved the Lord with his mind. He did not doubt ; 
he believed. His trumpet never gave forth an 
uncertain sound. He caused no weak brother to 
stumble ; he strengthened and confirmed the faith 
of the weak. There were never any whisperings 
as to possible unsoundness of his teachings. The 
foundation truths of Christianity and the essen- 
tial doctrines of Methodism — all these he stead- 
fastly believed. But his faith was free. He had 
read the old books, and the new books also. He 
knew what was being written and said by scien- 
tists and critics and theologians. He had an 
open mind, a mind hospitable to the truth by 
whomsoever uttered. He followed the light 
wherever he saw it shining. He believed and 
was fearless and unperplexed; for there is no 
fear in faith, but perfect faith casteth out all fear, 
3 



34 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Wherever there is fear, there is doubt, for he 
that feareth is not yet made perfect in faith. 

His ministry and his election to the episcopacy 
came at an opportune, a providential time; for 
we have come to a place in the history of Chris- 
tian thought where two seas meet: on the one 
hand are the men who are ultraradical, and on 
the other hand are those who are ultraconserva- 
tive. The first seem to love what is new rather 
than what is true ; the second declare that if any- 
thing is new it is therefore false. And the 
second class is just as dangerous to Christianity 
as the first. Every age speaks its own language ; 
and a living theology must not speak a dead 
tongue, but must utter itself in the tongue where- 
in the men of this age were born, for "it is a thing 
plainly repugnant to the word of God, and the 
custom of the Primitive Church, to minister in a 
tongue not understood by the people." The spir- 
it and attitude of Bishop Ward are plainly seen in 
the following utterances: "The Church exists 
to-day and must do her work in the midst of 
changed and changing conditions. We live in a 
new world, the like of which our fathers never 
saw. True, 'every age is an age of transition, 



AN APPRECIATION. 35 

unless, indeed, it be an age of stagnation;' but 
the revolutions of the past fifty years have been 
more radical in character and far-reaching in re- 
sults than in any like period of the world's his- 
tory." "I am not overcareful about the terms in 
which a man may state his faith. It is easy to 
attach too much importance to formulas and too 
little to the substance of the faith." In his ser- 
mon preached at Vanderbilt University he said: 
"Some men think they are skeptical when they 
have only given up their little thoughts about 
God." 

True to the Faith of the Fathers. 

What kept Bishop Ward true to the faith of 
the fathers and at the same time gave him an 
open mind was his personal experience of reli- 
gion. Some men get their knowledge of theology, 
their knowledge of religion, at second hand. It 
has come to them by tradition or they have read 
it in books or been taught it in school. They 
may be good men, and their theology may be, at 
bottom, correct. But when such men read new 
books or hear new truth presented — truth which 
they are not able at once to quadrate with their 
accustomed methods of thought — then they do one 



36 CONQUERING FORCES. 

of two things: either they reject the new teach- 
ing as false and denounce the teachers of it, or 
they accept it and turn aside from the faith once 
for all delivered unto the saints. This, as every- 
body knows, is exactly what some of our young 
American scholars have done. They have ac- 
cepted certain conclusions of "the new learning" 
and have been swept from their moorings. They 
have read certain books or attended certain 
schools ; and, having never had a deep experience 
of religion, having never put to the test in their 
own souls the fundamental truths of our holy 
religion, and being "drugged by the weight of 
their great authorities," they pluck up the wheat 
with the chaff, they empty out the child along 
with the bath. Christian faith is a vital thing, 
conscious communion with the living Christ, and 
whosoever walks with God is not likely to de- 
part from fundamental orthodoxy. Seth Ward 
walked with God, therefore he was both conserv- 
ative and progressive. 

The Wise Administrator. 
But it was as an administrator that Bishop 
Ward was strongest. As a pastor he knew what 
Israel ought to do ; as a presiding elder he guided 



AN APPRECIATION. 37 

with wisdom all the interests of his district; as 
Assistant Missionary Secretary his judgment of 
men and policies always commended itself to 
those associated with him in directing the mis- 
sionary work of the Church ; as bishop in the 
Church of God, from his first Conference to his 
last, his administration was marked with kind- 
ness and patience and insight and firmness. 

His was a calm, judicial temperament. This 
was his by nature, by training, and by grace. His 
whole life had been pure. The follies of youth 
he had been an utter stranger to. His training 
school, his university, had been the actual work 
of an itinerant preacher — as junior preacher, as 
circuit preacher, as city preacher, as presiding 
elder, and then in the wider field of Missionary 
Secretary. His natural temperament and Jiis 
wide experience will account in large measure for 
his gifts and wisdom as an administrative officer. 
But I must not fail to mention another thing 
which must be taken into consideration. He was 
utterly unselfish. He was never once known to 
do a selfish thing or seek a selfish end. In form- 
ing his opinion of men and measures self-interest 
did not warp his judgment. Most men would 



38 CONQUERING FORCES. 

have clearer vision if self were entirely out of 
the way. "If self the wavering balance shake, 
it's seldom right adjusted." When one's eye is 
single, then is one's whole body full of light. 
His Unselfish Devotion to Christ and His Church. 

The Church never had a more unselfish servant 
than Seth Ward. One great thought was upper- 
most in his mind, one great word was continually 
on his tongue. That thought and word was 
Service. Read his sermon entitled "A Divine 
View of Life" — a sermon on the Parable of the 
Talents, and a subject which he often discussed 
— and see how this thought had mastered him — 
yes, mastered him. "No life is commonplace," 
he says, "unless we choose to make it such." 
"We talk of 'talented men.' All men are talented ; 
each has at least one talent, and that is God's 
gift." He declared: "Life is not an evil to be 
endured, as the pessimist would have us believe ; 
it is not a trifle to be squandered, as thousands 
seem to think. It is a sacred trust to be held and 
used for our fellow-men according to the will of 
God." By that creed he lived and died. 

At one of his Annual Conferences resolutions 
were brought forward and adopted requesting the 



AN APPRECIATION. 39 

bishops not to bring transfers into that Confer- 
ence. After the resolution had been adopted, the 
Bishop quietly said : "Years ago, in a certain Con- 
ference, resolutions similar to these which you 
have just adopted were being circulated for sig- 
nature. A certain young preacher was asked to 
sign them, but he refused, saying : 'No, I will not 
sign these resolutions. If we are opposed to 
transfers coming into our Conference, the best 
way to keep them out is to fit ourselves for the 
first places.' ,: That was his spirit when a young 
man — and always. But never did he seek first 
places for himself, but he did seek to fit himself 
for the best service of which he was capable. And 
he knew the meaning of Christ's words: "Who- 
soever would be great among you shall be your 
servant; and whosoever would be first among 
you shall be your bond-servant." 

As the General Conference of 1906 drew near, 
many friends in different parts of the Church were 
writing him that his election as bishop was prob- 
able. He went on about his work with his usual 
modesty and self-forgetfulness. I give here one 
letter written by him at this time. He wrote many 
others like it : 



4 o CONQUERING FORCES. 

My Dear Brother: Your note of the 12th inst. is be- 
fore me. For your kind expressions I am profoundly 
grateful. The confidence and esteem of brethren with 
whom I have been associated are counted the richest 
blessings that can come into my life. For twenty-three 
years I have been preaching to other people that it is all 
important what a man is — not very important what posi- 
tion he may chance to occupy in the world. I am trying 
to live by that principle. I am conscious of no special 
fitness for the high position in the Church to which you 
refer. I am conscious of many deficiencies. So the 
matter is being left entirely alone by me. In the mean- 
time I am trying to do the work that comes to hand. 

During the session of the General Conference, 
while balloting was going on and when the result 
of the election was quite uncertain, one of the 
delegates, meeting him in the lobby of his hotel, 
said to him : "Doctor, you do not appear to be as 
much disturbed as do some of the brethren who 
are being voted for." His reply was character- 
istic: "I feel perfectly at peace. I sometimes 
fear that my friends are overestimating my fitness 
for this great office, and I shall not allow myself 
to be disappointed if they fail to elect me." 

Bishop Warren A. Candler writes as follows 
concerning a certain incident: 



AN APPRECIATION. 41 

The habit of unselfishness so pervaded all his life, 
even in the smallest things, that heroic self-sacrifice was 
easy to him on great occasions. 

I can never forget his spirit and conduct when Gal- 
veston and the southeastern coast of Texas were des- 
olated by the great storm in the year 1900. I was in 
charge of the Texas Conference that year; and when 
the news of the disaster came, I hastened to the scene 
of distress. He was living in Houston at the time, and 
he went with me to the stricken city and to other storm- 
swept points. His calm courage cheered the people 
where he went. Some two and a half months after the 
storm I held the Texas Conference at Rockdale. In that 
time we had been able to bring to nearly complete res- 
toration the churches which had been swept away in 
the rural districts, and the rebuilding of the houses of 
worship in the smaller towns was far advanced. But 
the situation in Galveston was appalling. Many of our 
people had been killed by the tornado. Many had re- 
moved from the city. The property of those who were 
left was greatly reduced. I was perplexed by the situ- 
ation. If I sent a young man without family to the 
work, he would lack the experience required for such a 
heavy task; if I sent a man of family, he and his wife 
and children must endure hardship and face great diffi- 
culties. I knew not what to do. But Dr. Ward solved 
my problem. About midnight after the first day's ses- 
sion of the Conference he came alone to my room, and 
said to me : "I have never sought to influence my ap- 



42 CONQUERING FORCES. 

pointment as an itinerant preacher, but I think I am 
justified in talking to you about it on this occasion. Our 
Conference has suffered an unprecedented calamity. 
You are perplexed about Galveston. Each and all of 
us must meet the situation heroically, and I have come 
to say to you that if you think I am equal to the work 
to be done in Galveston I am willing to go." I replied, 
"Have you considered what going there at this time 
would mean to your wife and children?" and he said: 
"Yes, I have talked the matter over with my wife, and 
she agrees with me about it." Then I said, "Brother 
Ward, I have intended to appoint you to the Austin 
District. Knowing that fact, are you still willing to go 
to Galveston ?" to which he answered : "Some older 
man, who could not stand the strain at Galveston, can 
do the work on the Austin District. Put me where I 
am perhaps more needed." 

He was not playing a part simply to appear heroic. 
I knew that he meant all he said. His calm manner, 
resolute tones, and serene courage evinced his sincerity. 
He had come at midnight that none might know of his 
coming and misjudge the object of his visit. 

I sent him to Galveston, and he saved our Church in 
that place. With what wisdom and patience and zeal 
he toiled until the work was done S 

"Thou, Heaven's Consummate Cup, What 
Need'st Thou zvith Earth's Wheel?" 

In one of his sermons Bishop Ward tells the 
story of a Chinese potter, "a maker of rare and 



AN APPRECIATION. 43 

delicate wares, who endeavored to make a gift 
for his king. He made many beautiful pieces, 
but each had some defect, a flaw of some kind. 
Again and again he tried, but always to fall short 
of perfect work. At last, in utter despair, he 
threw himself into the fires of his furnace and 
perished in the flames. But it is said that out of 
those flames there came the most beautiful and 
valuable wares the world ever saw — vessels fit, 
indeed, for the palace of a king." This is pre- 
cisely what our dear friend and brother did — in 
utter devotion he gave himself to Christ. But 
out of that perfect sacrifice there came a life of 
rarest beauty and power. There is marvelous 
completeness about this life — it is not a broken 
arc, but a perfect circle ! 

UNTO SUNRISE. 

O brother brave and prophet wise, 
Thou sailor 'neath uncharted skies, 
For thee nor space, nor dawn, nor night, 
Could swerve the needle-point of right; 
Nor friends, nor home, nor native land 
Could duty's pilot wheel command 
Love knows thy course was chosen true ; 
Hope cheers that thou hast held it through. 



44 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Grief-dumb, we gaze as one that dreams 
Adown the sunset lane of beams, 
Aghast that darkness falls so soon, 
Like sudden midnight come at noon ; 
When, lo ! a signal flashes far, 
Beneath the calm of evening star, 
Of Harbor, Home, and Morning fair, 
For storm-beat sailors anchored there : 
Whereat Love's muffled minor dies, 
And Hope, exultant, shouts: "Sunrise!" 
— In memory of Bishop Ward, by Dr. W. W. Pinson. 

I have not heard, neither have I read, of any 
life whose earthly ending was more beautiful than 
his. As he had lived, so he died. The gospel 
with which he had comforted others was to him 
a rod and a staff. The promises of God found 
their abundant fulfillment in him. When he en- 
tered and as he passed through the Valley of the 
Shadow, God w r as with him. 

It will be remembered that in 1908 he had been 
given charge of the Conferences in the East, and 
had done distinguished service there. In partic- 
ular, he had brought to a settlement "the Che- 
kiang land case." As the Shanghai Times said : 
"The good name, not only of the Missionary 
Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
South, but of all Missionary Societies working in 



AN APPRECIATION. 45 

China, was at stake ; and it is not too much to 
say that this good name has been fully protected 
and, indeed, added to." Concerning the part 
which Bishop Ward took in the settlement of this 
important case, the same great paper says: "A 
large measure of credit for this result must be 
given to Bishop Ward, whose testimony on the 
witness stand was of such a fair and impartial 
spirit that it could not fail to convince the public 
that the mission intended to do not only the right 
but the generous thing." In view of the work he 
had already done in the East, and in response to 
the great desire of the missionaries, the Confer- 
ences in the Orient were assigned to Bishop Ward 
again for the year 1909. 

With pleasure the Churches in Asia looked for- 
ward to his coming, and with joy he welcomed 
the opportunity of going again. But a fatal ill- 
ness had taken hold on the man who had scarcely 
ever known what illness was. His physician di- 
agnosed it as malarial poisoning. He became 
strangely absent-minded; words and familiar 
names would not come to memory when required ; 
he would forget to-day what he had done yester- 
day; he would sometimes lose his bearings and 



46 CONQUERING FORCES. 

have difficulty in finding his way to a desired 
point. His friends advised him not to attempt 
the journey to the East. Bishop Candler, who 
loved him as David loved Jonathan, wrote ofTer- 
ing to go for him. But he had always done his 
work and did not know how to stop ; and, besides, 
his physician recommended the ocean voyage with 
its rest and sea breeze. And so, taking his son 
Walter with him, he went on his last journey. 
Before leaving Houston, he called to see his 
friend Judge Hamblen. As they parted, he said : 
"I just called to say good-by and to leave a mes- 
sage : If I don't return, say to my friends that I 
went in discharge of my duty." He sailed from 
San Francisco July 22 on the ship Mongolia, due 
to reach Yokohama August 8. As the ship was 
leaving, his last words to Rev. W. E. Vaughan, 
Editor of the Pacific Methodist Advocate, were: 
"Brother Vaughan, I may never see America 
again; but if I don't, all is well. God knows 
best." And so he went away from us. 

About noon August 8 a telegram was handed 
the Rev. S. E. Hager at Kobe, signed by Bishop 
Harris, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
reading: "Bishop Ward arrived sick. Come at 



AN APPRECIATION. 47 

once." By a little after nine o'clock the next 
morning that faithful missionary was at his 
side. Bishop Ward realized that he was very ill. 
Summoning all his powers, he gave as complete 
account of himself as possible, and then added: 
"The good Father knows what is best for me, 
and I am putting my case into his hand. Hager, 
you take charge of everything. I'll obey the 
physicians and you." On the morning of Au- 
gust 10 the Rev. Mr. Hager took the train with 
Bishop Ward for his home in the city of Kobe, 
arriving at 9 120 p.m. The Bishop retired at once, 
and spent most of the following day in bed. Dr. 
Miller, the leading physician of the city, was 
called to see him, and attended him until the end 
came. Brother Hager gave him all possible at- 
tention, for three weeks having a cot by his bed- 
side so as to respond to every need. In his home 
the Bishop remained until the last day of August, 
when he was taken to the home of Dr. Newton, 
on the Kwansei Gakuin campus, in order that he 
might be cared for by Mrs. Newton and others 
while the missionaries attended the annual meet- 
ing of the mission at Arima. 

I have said that I have never heard of any life 



48 CONQUERING FORCES. 

whose earthly ending was more beautiful than 
was Bishop Ward's. This is the more notewor- 
thy ; and it is seen to have been a most glorious 
triumph when the nature of the Bishop's illness 
is understood. His mind wandered much; he 
would ask the same questions over and over 
again; he talked incoherently much of the time; 
he had poor control over his bodily movements; 
he suffered from severe headache. These symp- 
toms grew rapidly worse toward the end of Au- 
gust. When he would awake from a deep sleep, 
his mind would be quite dazed ; and often he would 
not be able to form proper mental conceptions of 
objects or of his relation to them. On the morn- 
ing of August 30 his left arm and left leg were 
seen to be paralyzed, and he was not able to an- 
swer any inquiries as to his wants. Dr. Taylor, 
an old and experienced missionary doctor, was 
called to consult with Doctor Miller, and they 
agreed in diagnosing his illness as having been 
brought about by tumor on the brain. But, with 
a disease of this distressing and unusual charac- 
ter, Seth Ward continued, in every conscious and 
unconscious moment, to be Seth Ward the gentle- 
man and the Christian. He was himself, and 



AN APPRECIATION. 4 g 

there was nothing lost. A more gentle or more 
patient sufferer one never saw. Not one word of 
complaint or dissatisfaction did he utter at any 
time; and when the words that he was speaking 
carried no further meaning to those who heard, 
they at least carried this significance: they were 
words that came out of a pure heart and a clean 
mind. Every little kindness he appreciated and 
commended, expressing special gratitude to Mrs. 
Hager and Mrs. Newton for seeking to make him 
comfortable in the lonely hours while he was far 
from home. The kindness of the Japanese peo- 
ple touched him deeply. "The Japanese nurses/' 
he said, "the Japanese people, and every man, 
woman, and child have been as kind as kind could 
be. In this sickness in Japan I have not been 
conscious of one moment of neglect. On the other 
hand, I have noticed how kind all have been." 
One day while Brother Hager was sitting by his 
side, he spoke to him of his great kindness in 
helping him bear his burden, assuring him that 
God would bless him for all his kindness. "Ha- 
ger," he continued, "so far as I can judge, Paul 
is the greatest interpreter of the spirit of the 
teachings of Christ the world has ever known, 
4 



50 CONQUERING FORCES. 

and probably ever will know. For instance, we 
have a flash of his genius in these words: 'Bear 
ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of 
Christ/ No flash of genius can equal that in its 
fullness and condensation. Paul, like the great 
Burden-Bearer, knew; for he, too, had been a 
burden-bearer. Hager, it is a great thing to be a 
Christian and to get down alongside of the great 
Burden-Bearer under a suffering fellow and help 
lift him up." 

His thoughts turned often to his loved ones at 
home. Back in 1886 he had married Margaret 
Elizabeth South, a Methodist preacher's daughter, 
and for more than twenty-three years theirs had 
been an ideal Christian home. Concerning him 
she says: "If he had a fault, I never knew it." 
When letters would be written to Mrs. Ward, he 
would say : "Tell her that I do not find life very 
satisfactory without her. Give my love to her 
and the children, and tell them that I am thinking 
much of the Father's house." And when, a few 
days before the end came, he had been called 
back to consciousness by the physicians, he said : 
"I hope that I'll have particular things to say be- 
fore the time to say no more. In any event, I 



AN APPRECIATION. 



51 



want to give expression first to my most perfect 
esteem and devotion to my dear wife and chil- 
dren." And to his son Walter he said: "I have 
tried to live in such a way, my son — I don't pre- 
tend to say that you have never seen in me what 
you would not approve— but I've tried in all good 
conscience to live a good, clean life and to do 
God's will. I am trusting only in his mercy for 
salvation." 

The Bible, which he had always loved, was still 
a lamp to his feet and a light to his path. During 
the days of his illness he greatly enjoyed the 
morning Bible-readings, usually indicating the 
portion of Scripture which he wished read, and 
sometimes commenting thereon. One day, in 
speaking of prayer, he remarked that he had be- 
come more simple in his prayers as he had grown 
older. And then, closing his eyes like a little 
child about to go to sleep, he said : 

"Now I lay me down to sleep. 
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep. 
If I should die before I wake, 
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take." 

He thought much of heaven. "I am not con- 
cerned about myself," he said, "or the issues of 



52 CONQUERING FORCES. 

this sickness, but for my family and the work. 
The work needs me, but how glorious it would 
be in heaven ! I could work on ; but if my Lord 
wants me, I am ready." When some small kind- 
ness had been shown him one day, his thoughts 
turned heavenward, and he said : 

"When we've been there ten thousand years, 

Bright-shining as the sun, 
We've no less days to sing God's praise 

Than when we first begun." 

By September 9 he had sunk into a deep coma. 
From this, by injections of saline solution into the 
blood, the physicians succeeded in arousing him. 
When he was informed that the end was rapidly 
approaching, he was calm and trustful, saying in 
answer to a question from Brother Hager: "I 
have no doubt that the same blessed Lord who 
was with me at my mother's knee, and who com- 
forted me as a boy, and who was with me in my 
most trying experiences- — the same blessed Lord 
and Saviour, I am sure, will comfort me in the 
presence of Jordan, in the presence of my Lord 
himself. He knows best of all. When other 
comforts fail, he knows how to comfort." Later 
in the day he called for James Montgomery's 



AN APPRECIATION. 



53 



hymn, "Forever with the Lord," and it was read 
to him : 

"Forever with the Lord !" 

Amen, so let it be ! 
Life from the dead is in that word, 
'Tis immortality. 

Here in the body pent, 

Absent from him I roam, 
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent 

A day's march nearer home. 

"Forever with the Lord !" 

Father, if 'tis thy will, 
The promise of that faithful word, 

E'en here to me fulfill. 

So when my latest breath 

Shall rend the veil in twain, 
By death I shall escape from death, 

And life eternal gain. 

Knowing as I am known, 

How shall I love that word, 
And oft repeat before the throne, 

"Forever with the Lord !" 

Later he said: "If I should come down to the 
border of the other world, there would be rest — 
peace — quietness." 

Gradually he slipped down again into uncon- 
sciousness, and so came to the border of the 



54 CONQUERING FORCES. 

other world. On Monday, September 20, he be- 
gan to sink rapidly. The pulse beat more and 
more slowly and the breath came with greater and 
greater difficulty until, at five o'clock, he lay per- 
fectly still. The silver cord was loosed ; the gold- 
en bowl was broken; the pitcher was broken at 
the fountain ; the wheel was broken at the cistern. 
The spirit had returned unto the God who gave it. 
The watchers by his bedside, amid their tears and 
sobs, sang, 

My Jesus, as thou wilt, 

O may thy will be mine ! 

and the Japanese nurse turned aside to weep for 
him who had died as she had never before seen a 
man die. 

REST* 
When the light of morn was stealing, 

Went a pilgrim on his way, 
Every chastened beam revealing 

Some new beauty of the day. 
While the streams were softly flowing 

O'er the pebbles at his feet; 
While the winds were gently blowing, 
Fraught with odors faint and sweet; 

*These verses were written by Seth Ward about the 
time he entered the ministry. 



AN APPRECIATION. 

In a shade beside the way, 
Where the zephyrs love to play, 
'Neath the trees in verdure dressed, 
Sank the pilgrim down to rest. 
But an angel softly whispered : 

"Child of time, thy course pursue ; 
Thou must fight and thou must conquer — 
Much remains for thee to do." 

When the storm was wildly beating, 

Went a pilgrim on his way, 
Bravely righting, boldly meeting 

All the dangers of the day. 
Where the clouds were dark and low'ring; 

Where the vivid lightnings play — 
Where the thunders, loudly roaring, 
Cast the tempest in his way ! 
'Till the day was spent at last, 
And the night around him cast, 
With the death wound in his breast, 
Sank the pilgrim down to rest 
But an angel softly whispered : 

"Child of time, thy course pursue ; 
Thou must fight and thou must conquer — 
Much remains for thee to do." 

When the muffled bells were tolling, 

Went a pilgrim on his way, 
Through the waters deep and rolling, 

Through the dashing of the spray, 



55 



56 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Till he reached the peaceful landing 

At the gate of glittering gold, 
Where the heavenly throng were standing 
To receive him in the fold. 

There beneath the spreading skies, 
Where angelic anthems rise 
In the regions of the blest, 
Sank the pilgrim down to rest. 
And an angel softly whispered : 

"Child of time, thy course is done ; 
Thou hast fought and thou hast conquered — 
Now, indeed, is rest begun." 

Rev. S. E. Hager, to whom we are indebted for 
the detailed account of the last illness and the 
death of Bishop Ward, says : 

We who have had the honor and privilege of caring 
for him during these six weeks have been already greatly 
enriched in our lives and Christian experiences. My own 
life has already struck a deeper and sweeter note, and I 
count it one of the greatest incidents in my life to have 
come into such close contact with so pure and perfect a 
type of Christian gentleman and such a childlike dis- 
ciple of my Lord. I have helped to nurse many men; 
but never have I seen such self-control, such trust in 
God, such chaste and elevated thought and speech upon 
a bed of sickness. 

Under date of December 2j, 1909, Dr. J. C. C. 
Newton writes : 



AN APPRECIATION. 57 

Yesterday (Sunday) was a glad day for some of us. 
Miss Kasawara, Bishop Ward's devoted nurse, was bap- 
tized and received into the Japan Methodist Church in 
Kobe by the Japanese pastor, Rev. M. Hori. I was not 
present, but I saw her in her brother's home only a few 
minutes after her return from the church. She seemed 
happy in her newborn profession as a Christian. She 
made this remark: "I have been led by Bishop Ward." 
What a witness to the power of personal Christian in- 
fluence ! Bishop Ward knew no Japanese. Most of the 
time he was unable to instruct any one, even if he had 
had the language; but there was something in the man 
that bespoke the servant of God even in his most dis- 
tressing condition, and that noble, pure-hearted young 
woman felt that he, the "man of God," had something 
she needed and longed for. 

O Brother Ward, we miss you ! Another like 
you, when shall we see again? May your spirit 
descend upon those of us who are now carrying 
the great responsibilities which you have laid down 
and upon the entire ministry of the Church ! 



CONQUERING FORCES OF THE 
KINGDOM. 



"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, 
and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not 
their lives unto the death." (Rev. xil n.) 



I. 

CONQUERING FORCES OF THE 
KINGDOM. 

IN order to understand any part of the book of 
Revelation, much more if we would grasp the 
meaning and enter into the book as a whole, two 
facts must be clearly perceived and kept con- 
stantly in mind : 

I. The peculiar literary style of the book. It 
is apocalyptic, a distinct type of literary produc- 
tion, one quite common among the Jews, espe- 
cially in the later years of their national life. It 
is historical, but it is not history. It is highly 
poetical, but it is not poetry. It is prophetic in 
its spirit, but it is not prophecy in the same 
sense that the writings of Isaiah and Amos and 
Jeremiah are prophecies. It is an apocalypse. 
Truth was seen in a series of visions ; and these 
visions, when recorded, are word pictures, sym- 
bolical representations of the truth that was in 
the Seer's mind. To attempt to give to these 
symbols a literal significance is to miss their 

(61) 



62 CONQUERING FORCES. 

meaning wholly. Dr. Ramsay has well said : "Lit- 
eral interpretation is the worst of all possible 
blunders." 

2. The book is the product and the record of a 
period of strife and warfare. It tells of the ex- 
perience, the bitter suffering, and yet the un- 
daunted faith and undying hope of the early 
Christians in the midst of severest persecution. 
Rome had raised her mailed hand to crush the 
infant Church. Fire and sword had been turned 
loose for the destruction of Christianity. The 
writer of this book was an exile because he held 
the interdicted faith. Dr. Ramsay, to refer again 
to that great scholar, suggests that John had been 
sentenced to penal servitude and was probably a 
daily toiler in the stone pits of Patmos. But no 
measure of oppression, no frowning face of cir- 
cumstances could quench the ardor of his spirit 
or limit the horizon of his faith. Out of suffering 
and war, out of fire and carnage, out of the shad- 
ow and the agony of death itself he sent this 
book, this message to the Asian Churches and to 
the Church of Jesus Christ in all ages and in all 
lands. It is a challenge of defiance to the forces 
of evil, an exultant declaration of faith in the final 



CONQUERING FORCES. 63 

deliverance of the world from the thraldom of 
sin, a note of jubilant song in anticipation of the 
ultimate triumphs of our Lord. It is the most 
distinctly optimistic of all the books in the sacred 
canon. 

The persecutions of the apostolic Church were 
the immediate environment of the writer. It 
was that that gave form and color to his visions. 
But in the quickened and uplifted thought of 
John the struggle raging about him assumed a far 
larger meaning. It typed and was, in part, the 
all-embracing and age-long conflict of the moral 
universe. It was the warfare of light and dark- 
ness, of good and evil, of truth and error, of 
God and all the forms and forces of sin in the 
world. The imagery used is of a magnificent 
sort. The universe was divided into hostile 
camps. All forces, angelic, diabolical, human, 
natural, were enlisted. Christ and Satan, Michael 
and Apollyon, good and evil angels, righteous 
and wicked men, all were seen in battle array. 
Babylon, the Dragon, the Beast, the false proph- 
et, death, hell — all were arrayed against the Lamb 
and his followers. Antagonism was pictured as 
brute force. We may not be sure of the partic- 



64 CONQUERING FORCES. 

ular meaning of these symbols — I am not sure 
that they had particular meaning in the mind of 
the writer, but I think we will not be mistaken if 
we say that back of these symbolic figures were 
ranged, in the apostle's thought, all the powers 
of evil in earth and hell. All the agencies and 
forces that could stand against the faith and the 
Church of Jesus Christ were seen and pictured 
in these symbols. It was, indeed, a mighty con- 
flict that raged on the arena of the apostle's 
thought. But not for one moment did he doubt 
the issue. He "saw the triumph from afar and by 
faith he brought it nigh." One by one he saw the 
powers of evil go down. Babylon went down, the 
Beast, the false prophet, the Dragon, death, hell 
— all went down to final and irretrievable over- 
throw, while from stage to stage the conquering 
Christ moved on to final and glorious victory. 
At the last, the earth was seen in the splendor of 
its regeneration, the New Jerusalem its match- 
less capital, the living Christ its ever-present 
King. It was a wonderful faith, that of the toil- 
er in the stone quarries of Patmos. It was in- 
spired. It is inspiring to this day. 

The text that I have read is a statement of the 



CONQUERING FORCES. 65 

Forces that Conquer. It was not by death, nor 
war, nor famine, nor tempests, not by burning 
stars or heaving mountains, nor by all of these 
combined, that the powers of evil were over- 
thrown and the world transformed into the very 
paradise of God. It was by moral agencies, by 
spiritual forces that the transformation was 
wrought. "They overcame ... by the blood 
of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony ; 
and they loved not their lives unto the death." 
These are the Conquering Forces of the King- 
dom. Let us consider them. 

I. "The blood of the Lamb" — God's love for 
the world expressed in terms of supremest sacri- 
fice. The Christ portrayed in the Apocalypse, 
the conquering Christ seen in the midst of the 
progress of the world's life, is the Sacrificial 
Christ, the Lamb of God. That is his preemi- 
nent title in the book. No doubt the idea came 
from that great gospel of the prophetic age, the 
fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. Twice did John 
the Baptist speak of him as "the Lamb of God." 
St. Peter likened him to a lamb without blemish. 
Nowhere else is such a title applied to him out- 
side of this book. Here, not less than twenty- 
5 



66 CONQUERING FORCES. 

nine times, he is designated as "the Lamb," "the 
Lamb of God." The Lion of the tribe of Judah, 
the mighty hero of Israel's earlier faith, who took 
into his own hands the Book, the problems of di- 
vine providence, and the unfolding chapters of 
human history, appears as "a Lamb standing as 
though it had been slain." "The Lamb," stand- 
ing on Mount Zion, receives the homage of the 
multitudes of the undefiled. "The Lamb," en- 
throned in the heavens, receives equal worship 
with the Almighty Father. 

More and more the world recognizes and hon- 
ors the matchless character of Jesus of Nazareth. 
He is the one mortal unstained by sin. His is the 
one life unmarred by evil. He is indeed "the 
mightiest among the holy and the holiest among 
the mighty." The ages echo the words of Pilate : 
"Behold the man !" To-day the world pays trib- 
ute as never before to Jesus the Teacher. The 
simple words that fell from his lips direct the 
steps of the humblest man. They are a lamp to 
our feet in the uncertain ways of life. But in 
those same words are found wisdom to guide the 
nations and truth to enlighten the world. His 
teachings, transparent as crystal drops in the 



CONQUERING FORCES. 67 

morning time, are also like old ocean's depths, 
unsounded and exhaustless. But it is not Jesus 
the perfect Man, nor Jesus the great Teacher, but 
Jesus the Lamb of God, who is to conquer the 
world and bring the nations to his feet. It is not 
pozver nor wisdom, but love that transforms the 
individual soul and will lift the race up into the 
fellowship of the immortals. It is the "scarred 
hand" that is to lift the gates of empire off their 
hinges and turn the course of history into other 
channels. Everything in our gospel is of value. 
"All scripture given by the inspiration of God 
is profitable." We could not spare one precious 
word. But there is just one conquering truth in 
the message that we are to deliver. God loved 
the world and gave himself, in the person of his 
Son, that we through his sacrifice might be saved 
from sin and live forever. Love is mighty. It 
is enthroned in the heavens. God is love. As 
love finds its highest expression and comes to the 
fullness of its power in sacrifice, so the world's 
greatest vision of God is when he appears in 
"Christ reconciling the world unto himself." It 
is no accident that sacrifice and optimism blend 
in this book. And to us is given this ministry 
of reconciliation. But, paradoxical as it may 



68 CONQUERING FORCES. 

sound, our message in its fullness cannot be put 
into words. Human terms are too poor to ex- 
press it. The New Testament writers seem to 
have been vaguely conscious of this. Therefore 
Christ, not something about Christ, was their 
gospel as he is ours. "Christ and him crucified/' 
He is the Word of God, the only word that ex- 
presses all of God. How is this verified in your 
experience and mine? We cannot tell the story 
as it is. Our words are utterly inadequate; our 
tongues falter, and the glorious truth eludes ex- 
pression. We can only say: "Look and see." 
"Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the 
sin of the world." That is the Conquering Force, 
fresh from the Almighty heart, that is given to 
the keeping of the Church on earth. The sermon 
that is not illumined by this truth, that does not 
pulsate with this life, that is not a-throb with this 
passion, is lacking in the first element of the 
power of the gospel of Christ. 

II. A second force is mentioned in this text — 
"the word of their testimony." Christian life 
must attest the sufficiency of Christian doctrine. 
It is the only adequate attestation. The one vital 
inquiry concerning Christianity is this: Will this 



CONQUERING FORCES. 69 

gospel save men? That is the only question we 
need be seriously concerned about, and only ex- 
perience can answer it. Thank God, the verdict 
of ten thousand redeemed souls attests its entire 
sufficiency. But the text means more than that. 
Our gospel, God's eternal truth, this message of 
self-giving and conquering love, is mightiest when 
spoken as words of human testimony. Truth 
passing through the crucible of human life comes 
out with added beauty and augmented power. I 
open this Book and read : "I waited patiently for 
the Lord ; and he inclined unto me, and heard my 
cry." It is a beautiful and touching statement 
out of God's word. Or, I read again : "There is 
therefore now no condemnation to them that are 
in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life 
in Christ Jesus made me free from the law 
of sin and death." Or again: "Behold, what 
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us 
that we should be called the sons of God." But let 
this language be used, not as the words of David 
or Paul or John, but as yours and mine — not be- 
cause it is written in the Bible, but because the 
truth lives and burns in our hearts — then the 
power of these words will be multiplied a hun- 



7 CONQUERING FORCES. 

dredfold. This is why the preaching of the gos- 
pel is committed unto men, to saved men; it is 
in order that truth may have the added power of 
human testimony. Faith is contagious ; it is its 
own best advocate. Conviction begets convic- 
tion. It is the man that believes and therefore 
speaks who has right of way to the conscience of 
his hearers. The note of testimony should ring 
in every sermon. Argument and illustration and 
exhortation have their place and their power, 
but the word of testimony, truth that has been 
verified and vitalized in the heart of the man who 
speaks it, is an element of distinct power in the 
message we are to deliver to our brothers for 
our Lord. This is the power of the Holy Spirit 
on the preacher. He makes vivid and vital the 
truth that otherwise was held as formal doctrine 
or abstract theory. We shall be witnesses after 
that the Holy Ghost is come upon us. 

III. There is yet another statement in the text, 
a statement that suggests another of the Con- 
quering Forces of the Kingdom : "They loved not 
their lives unto the death." Unselfish living — 
who can tell its power for good ? There has been 
but one thoroughly unselfish life in this world, 



CONQUERING FORCES. 71 

and that life redeems our race. From time to 
time we have seen the beauty and felt the in- 
fluence of unselfish action. It always uplifts, 
strengthens, and inspires. As we are delivered 
from the spirit of selfishness, we are empow- 
ered to serve others. It is not surprising that 
the seer of Patmos, as he looked out on the battle 
field of the ages, where, one by one, the forces of 
evil are to go down to final defeat, should num- 
ber among the Conquering Forces the power of an 
unselfish life. Here is where we are weak. Here 
is where we may be strongest. God forgive us 
and make us strong by the infilling and the in- 
dwelling of the Christ-spirit. The story is told 
of a Chinese potter, a maker of rare and delicate 
wares, who endeavored to make a gift for his 
king. He made many beautiful pieces, but each 
had some defect, a flaw of some kind. Again 
and again he tried, but always to fall short of 
perfect work. At last, in utter despair, he threw 
himself into the fires of his furnace and perished 
in the flames. But it is said that out of those 
flames there came the most beautiful and valu- 
able wares the world ever saw — vessels fit, in- 
deed, for the palace of a king. When we put our 



72 CONQUERING FORCES. 

lives into our work, when we can truthfully say, 
"Lord, at last thy love has conquered; none of 
self, and all of thee," then will our work be ac- 
ceptable to our King and well-nigh resistless in 
the world. 

It is not strange that this statement comes last 
in the apostle's utterance. Truth, experience, 
character — that is the true order. God's truth 
seen in Jesus Christ; God's truth verified in hu- 
man experience and told in terms of human testi- 
mony; God's truth wrought into and working 
through its highest earthly form, Christian char- 
acter, self-sacrificing life. 

These are the Conquering Forces before which 
John saw the embodied and aggressive powers of 
evil go down. By these the kingdom of God is 
set up in the individual life. By these Christ is 
to conquer the world. The kingdoms of evil are 
doomed. All Babylons shall fall. In whatever 
form evil may embody itself, in whatever posi- 
tion it may intrench itself, it is doomed. There 
are no "necessary evils." The liquor power shall 
go down. A godless materialism, that knows 
neither Creator nor Reedemer, shall go down. 
Intrenched heathenism, that casts its baleful shad- 



CONQUERING FORCES. 73 

ow over two-thirds of the human race, shall go 
down. All shall go down. All shall go down! 
The ear of faith hears the rumble and crash of 
their overthrow echoing down through unborn 
centuries. Silently and ceaselessly as the sun- 
light the resistless forces of Christ's kingdom 
shall go forth to subdue and transform the earth. 
Human history shall end, as the Apocalypse ends, 
with a joyous and triumphant song that shall fill 
all the earth and ring through all the heavens: 
"Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reign- 
eth." 



THE KINGDOM TO COME. 



"Thy kingdom come." (Matt. vi. 10.) 



II. 

THE KINGDOM TO COME. 

THESE words are recognized at once as one 
of the petitions in our Lord's Prayer, a 
prayer that with equal propriety might be called 
humanity's prayer, for by its character and its 
history it is easily preeminent in the liturgy of 
the world. It expresses sublimest thought in 
simplest speech. It is sufficiently definite to be 
applied to our daily wants and daily experiences, 
and yet it is sufficiently comprehensive to em- 
brace the needs of the world. We learned this 
prayer at our mothers' knees. I did, and you did. 
We lisped these petitions in the broken speech of 
childhood. And yet through more than eighteen 
centuries of Christian history, in many parts of 
the world, in all conditions of life, men and women 
have been pouring their aspirations and their 
needs into these words and sending them heaven- 
ward on wings of faith. Wonderful, wonderful 
prayer! And as often as men have asked for 
daily bread, as often as they have besought di- 

(77) 



yS CONQUERING FORCES. 

vine forgiveness or importuned heaven for de- 
liverance from the evils of the earth, they have 
prayed, "Thy kingdom come." Many, many times 
have we taken this petition upon our lips. What 
does it mean? What have we really been pray- 
ing for? What did Jesus mean that we should 
pray for when he put this petition on the lips 
of his disciples? It is worth while to consider 
this. 

The kingdom of God is one of the great con- 
ceptions, not to say the greatest conception, of 
the Christian religion. The Almightiness of God 
is one of the fundamental thoughts of revelation. 
From of old it has been recognized that the 
heavens and the earth obey his will. Mountains 
and seas are in his hands. No star shines in the 
distance of space that is beyond the sweep of his 
power. Moral beings may transgress his law, 
sin against God and themselves, but they cannot 
go beyond the reach of the Almighty arm. This 
was the thought of the Psalmist when he said: 
"Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither 
shall I flee from thy presence?" In this sense 
"the Lord reigns" and has ever reigned. His 
kingdom is bounded only by the limits of the 



THE KINGDOM TO COME. 79 

universe. But very early in Hebrew faith and 
thought there arose, or was implanted, the idea 
of a kingdom of God above the level of mere 
force, a kingdom of willing obedience, of love 
rather than power, and therefore a kingdom of 
moral characteristics. It is not possible for me to 
speak now of the beginnings of this idea, of its 
development, of its transition from secularity to 
spirituality, and back to secularity again. That 
is too wide a field to enter at this time. Read the 
seventy-second Psalm and the eleventh, the thir- 
ty-fifth, and the sixtieth chapters of Isaiah, and 
you will find splendid statements of the Hebrew 
conception of a kingdom that was to come. In 
order to understand this petition in our Lord's 
prayer and many another word that he uttered, 
we must remember that when Jesus entered upon 
his earthly ministry there was in the Jewish 
mind lively expectancy and a deep desire for the 
coming of God's kingdom as they understood it ; 
not a grossly secular kingdom as we sometimes 
say, and yet a worldly kingdom — one by which 
all Israel's enemies would be overthrown, all 
their wrongs avenged, and all their dreams of 
earthly glory fully realized. 



80 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Our Lord began his ministry with a state- 
ment that seems simple and commonplace to 
us, but it was startling and thrilling to the na- 
tion and the generation to which he spoke. He 
did not come with arguments or explanations, 
but with a ringing announcement: "The time is 
fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand." 
He called the message that he delivered "The 
Good News of the Kingdom." Through all his 
teaching that note is heard — in parable and in 
sermon, in the synagogues and by the wayside, 
speaking to the little group of his disciples or 
addressing the great multitudes, the same truth 
is heard, "the kingdom," "the kingdom," "the 
kingdom." More than one hundred times is this 
expression found in the first three Gospels. Now, 
if we carefully examine these messages to get 
the exact meaning that belongs to this expression, 
we are soon convinced that it has a variety of 
meanings. Sometimes the kingdom is evidently 
individualistic, a matter of personal faith and per- 
sonal experience. "The kingdom of God is with- 
in you." It is a "pearl of great price" or a 
"treasure hid in a field" which a man can acquire 
and own for himself. At other times it is a king- 



THE KINGDOM TO COME. 8l 

dom in the world, ethical, social, and yet spiritual 
in its character. This is certainly the sense in 
which the expression was most frequently used 
in the teachings of Jesus. And yet it is equally 
sure that Jesus sometimes spoke of a transcend- 
ent kingdom, one that is not limited to this world. 
Too large for the earth, it sweeps out and up 
until it fills the eternal years and touches the ut- 
termost bounds of God's creation. This seems 
to be the prevalent thought in St. Paul's teach- 
ing concerning the kingdom. But in this appar- 
ent diversity there is an underlying unity of 
meaning. The kingdom of God in the world, the 
social, ethical kingdom, is but the aggregate of 
the individuals in whose lives God's kingdom 
has been established, men and women united in 
faith and love and inspired by common hopes and 
aims. The eternal kingdom, the kingdom of end- 
less life and undreamed glory, is just the same 
kingdom surviving death, reaching beyond time 
and filling the higher and wider realms of being. 

In the petition found here in our daily prayer 
the reference is manifestly to the kingdom of 
God in this world. The following petition is ex- 
planatory and puts the meaning beyond question. 
6 



82 CONQUERING FORCES. 

We are to pray for the coming of God's kingdom 
in time and on earth. 

'The kingdom of God" is in some sense a figur- 
ative expression. The terms, and to some extent 
the idea, were suggested by the forms of earthly 
governments, and no earthly figures or human 
terms can perfectly express truths that are spir- 
itual and eternal in their character. Kingdoms, 
as they are known to us, are but meager and in- 
adequate types of God's ideal of government of 
moral beings. A too literal use of the term led 
to the half-secular ideals held by the medieval 
Church. Divine sovereignty must not overshadow 
divine fatherhood, nor must the fact that men are 
citizens of a divine kingdom obscure the greater 
truth that they are also members of a divine 
family. Yet this expression, figurative though 
it be, stands for a real and great truth and may 
well be studied with utmost care. 

A kingdom involves at least three ideas: (i) 
a sovereign; (2) a law; and (3) subjects. It 
cannot mean less than that. God, as revealed in 
Jesus Christ, is King. His revealed will is the 
law of this realm. Intelligent moral beings who 
gladly yield themselves to this service are the 



THE KINGDOM TO COME. 83 

subjects of this kingdom. It may extend beyond 
our race. Pure spirits of many a world, death- 
less "sons of light" who stand evermore in the 
divine presence, we may well believe, are subjects 
of our King and rejoice to live under the royal 
law of love. But in this sermon our thought of 
this kingdom will be confined to its human con- 
stituency. 

I. The kingdom of God, as thus defined, is a 
present and a real kingdom. It is neither a theory 
nor a shadow. It is not existent in some far-away 
and mystic region. It is not of this world, but 
it is in this world. It is a spiritual kingdom, and 
therefore is not subject to the conditions of earth- 
ly governments. It is not bounded by territorial 
lines. It is not limited by race or clime or speech 
or blood ; but it is a real kingdom, as really pres- 
ent in the world to-day as the British empire or 
the American republic. There are multitudes of 
men and women to whom Christ is King, men and 
women to whom love — love for Christ and their 
fellow-men — is the supreme law of life. In busi- 
ness, in politics, in social life, amid all the clamors 
of earthly life, their first inquiry is: "Lord, what 
wilt thou have me to do?" And this loyalty to 



84 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Christ our King is exhibited in forms of service 
as heroic as earth has ever known. To-day men 
and women are bearing heavy burdens and en- 
during sore privations. They are going down 
into the dark places of ignorance and sin and out 
to the ends of the earth on missions of mercy to 
their fellow men because it is the will of the 
King. Theirs is a type of courage higher than 
was known by the old guard of Napoleon or the 
light brigade that charged into the valley of 
death. Our Christ is "King of kings and Lord 
of lords," not only because he holds sway over 
the sovereigns of earth, but because the subjects 
of his realm are raised to the heights of royal 
character and are inspired with the zeal of lord- 
ly spirits. True believers are made "kings and 
priests" unto our God. These men and women, 
subjects of our Lord, are found in America, in 
Europe, in Asia, in Africa, in the islands of the 
sea ; and wherever they are found, there is found 
the kingdom of God in this world. In this sense 
and to this extent the kingdom has come. 

II. The pozver of this kingdom reaches beyond 
its own borders and overlaps on the world. Its in- 
fluence is felt where its authority is not confessed. 



THE KINGDOM TO COME. 85 

Who can estimate the power of Jesus Christ in 
the world's life to-day? The spirit of his teach- 
ing, to some extent at least, is written in the laws 
of nations. It pervades the institutions of the 
world's best social life. It lives and is mighty in 
the public sentiment of Christendom. In com- 
merce, in literature, in art, in statecraft, its ideals 
are largely and increasingly influential. Even 
now the ancient promise is fulfilled, and in Abra- 
ham's seed all the nations of the earth are blessed. 
III. Bui the kingdom is to come. The kingdom 
of God, which in the beginning was like a grain 
of mustard seed, a mere handful of peasants in 
an insignificant corner of the earth, has grown 
to its present mighty proportions, the greatest 
kingdom on the earth, but it has not reached the 
fullness of its growth. Or, to use the imagery 
of another parable, the seed has been sown, the 
blade has appeared, the ear begins to form, but 
the world must wait to see ''the full corn in the 
ear." The kingdom as it is on the earth to-day, 
our great Christian civilization that enlightens 
and enriches the human race, is but "green corn." 
What will it be in the glory of the harvest time ? 
The kingdom is to come. To what extent? In 



86 CONQUERING FORCES. 

what measure is God's will to be done on earth ? 
To what extent will love rule the conduct of 
mankind or righteousness fill the earth ? In what 
measures of power or what heights and breadths 
of blessing is God's kingdom to come on the 
earth? A dogmatic answer would be unwise. 
We must not forget that it is a kingdom of free- 
dom. Were it otherwise, it would be a kingdom 
unworthy of God and of little value to man. Love 
and truth are the only forces employed for its 
extension. Human wills clash with the divine 
will and thwart the purposes of God in individual 
lives. Unbelief and disobedience stay the prog- 
ress of the kingdom in the world. It is the old 
problem of human freedom and divine sover- 
eignty. But the kingdom is to come. I have said 
that love and truth are the only forces employed 
for its extension. They are the mightiest forces 
in God's universe, and these forces in most potent 
form express themselves in the gospel of Jesus 
Christ. There are those who hold that the king- 
dom is to be established by the personal, visible 
advent of the King. Good, wise men hold that 
view. But I do not so read God's word. Such a 
view seems to me a sort of confession of unbelief 



THE KINGDOM TO COME. £7 

in the power of the gospel. It is as much as to 
say that the cross cannot conquer the world. I 
believe it can. God's love, God's truth, expressed 
in Jesus Christ, reincarnating themselves in hu- 
man life, reexpressing themselves in human serv- 
ice, are the forces that are to transform the world 
and establish God's kingdom in all the earth. 

A scriptural, rational faith looks for the coming 
of God's kingdom as it has not yet come. 

1. It is to come in a purer, stronger social 
life than the zvorld has yet seen. The evils that 
are in the world, even in our Christian world, are 
to be subdued and cast out. All that is good is 
to be purified, enlarged, and uplifted. Literature, 
commerce, and politics, purged of their defile- 
ments, will be made to minister only to the holi- 
ness and happiness of mankind. We have seen 
Christian men and women, Christian homes, 
Christian Churches, Christian communities. The 
world will yet see Christian cities, Christian 
states, Christian nations — cities, states, nations 
in which the Golden Rule will be the law of 
human conduct and the Sermon on the Mount 
be the charter of human society. The nations of 
to-day may not realize this high destiny. They 



88 CONQUERING FORCES. 

may fail and fall. They may forget God and 
perish. Others have fallen. But read your his- 
tories, and you will find that when nations or 
civilizations have gone down it has been to be 
succeeded by others approximating more nearly 
the divine ideal. The tide has ebbed only to flow 
again and to rise to higher levels as it comes into 
obedience to the eternal laws that move it on. 
The kingdom is to come. 

2. The kingdom is to come in a wider sphere 
of Christian life than the zvorld has yet seen. 
Already it has spread from a handful of Gali- 
lean peasants to the mighty hosts that follow the 
cross to-day. It has risen from the manger of 
Bethlehem to the thrones of the earth. Its sub- 
jects are found in every land. The honors of our 
King are sung in almost every tongue of earth. 
Each passing day witnesses some larger conquest 
in his name. It is rational and scriptural to be- 
lieve that all the world is destined to be Chris- 
tian as no part of it is Christian now. Why not? 
Why not? Is anything mightier than God's 
truth? Will not such love as was revealed on 
Calvary sweep through all lands and subdue all 
hearts ? 



THE KINGDOM TO COME. 89 

Jesus shall reign where'er the sun 
Doth his successive journeys run. 

It is for this we pray as often as we say 
"Thy kingdom come." This is the splendid goal 
that is set before the faith of the Church. Human 
spirits, on pinions of faith, are to be lifted up to 
the eternal One in this behalf. Only the enlist- 
ment of the forces of the invisible world can make 
possible the realization of this glorious vision. 
Only a deep sense of our dependence on the Al- 
mighty Arm, a consciousness of our need of the 
living God, will enlist our efforts to the utter- 
most. And so we pray as the Master taught us : 
"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. . . . 
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the 
glory forever." 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN IN THE TWEN- 
TIETH CENTURY. 



"Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neigh- 
bor unto him that fell among the thieves ? And he said, 
He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto 
him, Go, and do thou likewise." (Luke x. 36, 37.) 



III. 

THE GOOD SAMARITAN IN THE TWEN- 
TIETH CENTURY. 

THE parable of the good Samaritan commends 
itself to the conscience of the world. The 
simple, beautiful, life-like story of genuine unself- 
ish human sympathy touches a responsive chord in 
the universal heart. However much we may fall 
short of the practice it enjoins, the better nature 
within us instinctively pays tribute to the prin- 
ciple it illustrates. The setting of the story is 
primitive and Oriental. Its spirit belongs alike 
to all ages and to all countries. A wounded man, 
stricken, suffering, ready to die, neglected by his 
own countrymen and co-religionists, was gener- 
ously succored by a man of another race and of 
an alien faith, by one who was separated from the 
sufferer by the highest barriers of social preju- 
dice and the deepest gulfs of racial antagonism. 
But Sympathy was found face to face with Need, 
and the barriers were broken down, the gulf was 
crossed, and help was given. Men may be in- 

(93) 



94 CONQUERING FORCES. 

different to Christianity in the abstract. They 
may find fault with our statements of doctrine and 
with our forms of worship, but I challenge any 
man in whose breast there throbs a human heart 
to find fault with the conduct of this Samaritan. 
You will observe that Jesus did not call him 
"good." He only outlined the picture by a few 
masterly strokes, giving to it the form and glow 
of life ; and for eighteen hundred years men have 
looked on that picture and have been talking about 
the good Samaritan. And that is only an illus- 
tration of the Christian spirit in social life. It is 
Christ's ideal of man's attitude and action toward 
his fellow man. It is Christ's illustration of his 
great law of service, the law enunciated by St. 
Paul when he said: "Bear ye one another's bur- 
dens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." 

I wish to base all that I shall say at this time 
on the truth so vividly and so beautifully illus- 
trated in this parable, a truth that may be ex- 
pressed in a single statement: The needs of our 
fellow men constitute their strongest claim on us 
for sympathy and for help. The truth of this 
proposition is so apparent that neither evidence 
nor argument is needed in its support. I offer 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 



95 



none. If any man commends the conduct of the 
priest and of the Levite rather than that of the 
Samaritan, for that man I have no argument to- 
day — we have no common standing ground. This 
truth is a very general one and is capable of many 
applications. It is my purpose to use it to-day 
as a basis for an argument and an appeal in behalf 
of the missionary work of the Christian Churches. 
Not men's wants, but their needs, constitute the 
ground of their claim upon us. The deeper and 
more urgent their needs, the stronger and more 
solemn the obligation resting upon us to render 
them such service as we can. More and more this 
truth is being seen and felt. There was a time 
when, apparently, men thought they could be 
Christians and remain indifferent to the needs of 
their brothers. They thought they could serve 
God and neglect men. They shut themselves up 
in cells or secluded themselves in the deserts, that 
they might serve God without distraction. But 
that day is forever past. The priest and the Le- 
vite, pilloried in this parable for more than eight- 
een centuries, objects of the world's contempt and 
scorn, remind us that no pious professions, no 
discharge of merely ecclesiastical functions, will 



96 CONQUERING FORCES. 

be accepted either by the conscience of men or 
the judgments of God as a substitute for service 
to our brother in the hour of his need. A sympa- 
thetic heart is more orthodox than all the creeds, 
and a helping hand is more religious than all the 
rites of sacerdotalism. Creeds and rites have 
their place and their value — not for one moment 
would I disparage them; but it was Paul who 
taught that charity is the greatest of all virtues, 
and Paul's Master and ours declared that love 
is God's supreme law and man's highest duty. 
The Christian religion is love, and love serves. 
Love gives itself. Witness Calvary. 

Let us consider for a moment the breadth of 
this principle. How far does the spirit of the 
good Samaritan reach ? Where will the limits of 
love be found ? A cry of distress, a call for help 
from my neighbor's house across the street does 
not need to be reenforced by arguments. The 
note of appeal is more potent than all logic, and 
the heart leaps to give relief before the mind can 
calculate the consequences of such conduct. Now, 
how far away must a needy man be in order that 
I be released from my obligation to give him 
help? If I am under bonds to the man across the 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 97 

street, why not to the man across the State or 
across the sea ? Sympathy is not limited by space. 
Distance may limit my opportunities to serve, 
but can interpose no barriers to love. My needy 
neighbor may differ from me in complexion, in 
physical features ; he may not think as I do upon 
matters of faith; his standards of conduct may 
differ from mine — but these are matters that do 
not enter into the account of the good Samaritan. 
No distance, no divergance of creed, no difference 
of feature, or social station or moral standard can 
absolve me from my obligation to help my brother 
in the hour of his distress. Our neighbor's need 
should be the one condition of our sympathy and 
the all-sufficient plea for our help. "As we have 
opportunity, let us do good unto all men." "The 
Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but 
to minister, and to give his life a ransom for 
many." "Now if any man have not the Spirit of 
Christ, he is none of his." 

The world's greatest need is the religion of 
Jesus Christ, the faith of the gospel of the Son 
of God. Let us consider that statement with 
some care. It involves far more than can be dis- 
cussed in a single sermon, but we can at least see 
7 



9 8 conquering forces. 

with clearer eye its absolute truth and get some 
larger view of its far-reaching significance. 

I. The Christian religion ministers to man's 
social, industrial, intellectual, and moral well- 
being. "Godliness has promise of the life that 
now is," as well as of "that which is to come." 
In carrying the gospel to non-Christian nations 
we do not go primarily to civilize them, but in 
carrying them our faith we carry them all that is 
purest, most helpful, most enduring in our civili- 
zation. Not in material things — steam, electric- 
ity — not in scientific discoveries and commercial 
progress, is found the glory of our civilization. 
A knowledge of the value of individual life, the 
supremacy of righteousness, the divinity of love, 
the brotherhood of man, the fatherhood of God — 
these are the invaluable elements of our civiliza- 
tion, and these are essentially Christian. The 
centuries have demonstrated that Christianity is 
the one sovereign remedy for poverty, ignorance, 
superstition, and the manifold ills that afflict the 
life of man in this world. True, the remedy has 
not been wholly effective in our own land, but it 
is equally true that the remedy has not been fully 
and faithfully applied in this land. It is indis- 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 



99 



putably true that where the teachings and spirit 
of Christ most fully prevail there the conditions 
of life are most favorable, and most favorable 
because of the prevalence of Christianity. 

We have poverty at home, but it is not to be 
compared with the pitiable squalor that prevails 
in non-Christian lands, especially in the pagan 
empires of the East. In India the average annual 
income is ten dollars per capita. A laboring 
man's wage is one dollar and fifty cents a month. 
In 1894 the Indian National Congress reported 
that fifty millions of human beings were drag- 
ging out a miserable existence and that multi- 
tudes perish annually from starvation. China 
is a country of great natural resources. The 
Chinese are said to be the most industrious peo- 
ple in the world, but in that country the wage 
of a working man is three dollars a month. 
China has one dollar and eighty-seven cents per 
capita in circulation ; the United States has more 
than twenty-nine dollars. The United States, 
with eighty million population, has an export 
trade five times greater than China, Japan, Ko- 
rea, and Siam, with a population of nearly five 
hundred millions. Give to the poverty-stricken 



loo CONQUERING FORCES. 

multitudes of pagan lands Christian faith and 
Christian civilization, the influences and institu- 
tions that uplift and enrich our lives, and the 
productive power of the individual will be in- 
creased, the channels of commerce will be en- 
larged, the horizon of life will be broadened, and 
they will begin to receive, in even this sense, the 
"life more abundant" that Jesus would give to 
the world. 

The blight of ignorance also is on the East. 
In India less than one per cent of the women 
have the simplest elements of an education. In 
China less than one per cent of the women can 
read. The popular idea is expressed in a Chi- 
nese proverb which says, "Educating a woman 
is like putting a knife in the hands of a monkey." 
The Hon. Charles Denby, recently deceased, for 
years United States Minister to Japan, is author- 
ity for the statement that domestic slavery pre- 
vails in China and that woman is its principal 
victim. Tens of thousands of lives are lost and 
untold suffering is endured only because the 
people are ignorant of the simplest principles of 
medical science. Womanhood is degraded. It 
is said that in India there are twenty million wid- 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 101 

ows, two million of them mere children; and in 
India widowhood means degradation, shame, suf- 
fering. Home life, in purity and blessedness 
known to us, is unknown in non-Christian lands. 
Of Japan, progressive Japan, the following state- 
ment was made by one who knows the country 
well: "The notion of home as understood in 
America and England had no existence in Japan 
until a very recent date. There was not even a 
word for it." When the idea was grasped, they 
had to coin a new word to express it. The need 
of the heathen world, even from the point of view 
of social and economic life, is unspeakable. Pov- 
erty, ignorance, superstition, quackery, and gov- 
ernmental oppression are fearfully prevalent, 
blighting the life of the individual and checking 
the progress of nations. 

Will you think for one moment of the waste 
of human life in the world? Of the men and 
women and children who ought to be and who 
might be pure, strong, happy, useful, but whose 
lives are going to waste day by day? They live 
in the darkness of ignorance, in the pinched and 
narrow ways of poverty, under the blight of 
grossest sin, all unconscious of the glorious life 



102 CONQUERING FORCES. 

of freedom and privilege, of peace and joy, that 
God would give to all his children. Often the 
question springs to our lips, Why does God allow 
such conditions to continue? The question often 
remains unanswered. But there is another ques- 
tion that ought to come to us over and over 
again, one that ought to burn itself into the con- 
science of every Christian, Why do we allow such 
conditions to continue? The Church of God can 
change them very largely if she will. But much 
as we deplore the slowness of the Church to hear 
and heed the cry of a needy world, this must in 
all fairness be said : The missionary work of the 
Christian Churches is the only effort being made 
to carry help to the needy multitudes of our 
fellow men and to give larger opportunities of 
life to a darkened and blighted zvorld. Com- 
merce is penetrating the remotest corners of the 
earth, and commerce benefits; but those benefits 
are incidental and are not unmixed with evil. 
Commerce goes for gain. In the nature of the 
case it could not be otherwise. The "open door" 
in the East for which our statesmen are contend- 
ing is, first of all, for our profit. An observant 
writer has well said : "Whether, apart from mis- 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 103 

sions, the West has done the East more good 
than harm, is at least an open question. " Only 
Christianity goes to serve. Only Christianity 
establishes schools and builds hospitals and 
founds asylums and goes into the dark dwelling 
places of heathenism to speak the word of peace 
and teach the way of life. The man whose heart 
is touched with pity for a needy world, whose 
philanthropic impulses would express themselves 
in efforts for a better world and a happier hu- 
manity, must aid the work of foreign missions 
now carried on by Christian Churches. Nobody 
else is attempting to do this work. 

II. The Christian religion is mans greatest 
need, most of all, because it meets in fullest meas- 
ure the needs of his spiritual nature. Man, the 
moral and immortal spirit, is vastly more than 
man, the merely social and intellectual being. 
Sin is the world's greatest evil. It is sin that 
dwarfs the spirit, blights the character, wrecks 
the home, degrades the nation, and ruins the in- 
dividual here and hereafter. In every land man 
is moral and mortal. He is sinning and dying, 
and needs, above all else, to be saved from his 
sins and assured of eternal life. The gospel of 



104 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Jesus Christ is the power by which God saves 
man from sin. Divine grace is the sovereign 
remedy for moral evil. We know this to be true. 
Its sufficiency has been demonstrated through all 
the centuries of Christian history, and to-day the 
trophies of its saving power are found in all the 
nations of the earth. 

And only the gospel saves. I do not mean to 
assert that the multitudes who have not heard our 
gospel are necessarily under condemnation. That 
were to inflict on them the penalties due to our 
negligence. "The Judge of all the earth will do 
right." Their eternal destiny is in his hands. 
But in this world God saves men only by the pow- 
er of the gospel. Purity of heart, tenderness of 
spirit, all-embracing charity, moral strength to 
resist the adverse forces that are in the world, 
the uplift and outlook that come from a great 
faith in a great God — these are features, elements 
of a saved life in this world, and these belong only 
to the man who receives the teachings and the 
spirit of Christ. We are in grave danger of 
losing sight of man's real nature, of sin's deadly 
character, and therefore of salvation's supreme 
worth. That insidious materialism that magnifies 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 105 

the physical man at the expense of the spiritual 
is the most subtle and dangerous antagonist of 
our faith to-day. A distinguished citizen of our 
Southland publicly announced a few years ago 
that he would give largely to the charities of his 
own city, but not one dollar for foreign missions. 
The United States expended hundreds of millions 
of dollars and jeopardized the lives of thousands 
of her sons for the political freedom of Cuba, but 
it is with difficulty that a few thousands of dol- 
lars and a few dozen men are secured for the 
evangelization of the island republic. Christian 
nations sent more men to China in 1900 to res- 
cue the Europeans and Americans imperiled in 
Peking than all Christendom sent for the evan- 
gelization of that empire in a hundred years. 
I am persuaded that in the average Christian 
Churches to-day we could raise more money to 
feed hungry men than we could to save sinful 
men. 

God forbid that we should care less for the 
bodies of our brothers, that we should have less 
of sympathy for their hunger and for their op- 
pression, but it is possible that we are losing 
sight of the higher and more important truth 



106 CONQUERING FORCES. 

that "man cannot live by bread alone," that "life 
is more than meat." It is less than true philan- 
thropy, certainly it is less than true Christianity 
to care for men's bodies and neglect men's souls 
— to provide for the needs of an hour and forget 
the interests that are eternal. 

It is sometimes objected that the peoples to 
whom we send our gospel have their religions, 
they are satisfied — why disturb their faith in an 
effort to give them ours? Because ours is true. 
In Jesus Christ God has given to the world his 
fullest and highest revelation of Truth and Life. 
If any man doubts at this vital point, he will 
probably object to foreign missions. Doubt at 
this point, conscious or unconscious, is at the 
bottom of many objections urged against this 
enterprise of the Church. But as a matter of 
fact we are not leaving non-Christian nations in 
the undisturbed possession of their religious be- 
liefs. They are being undermined and destroyed 
day by day, not only by the work of Christian 
Churches, but by all the outgoing forces of our 
modern life. Ethnic faiths can neither evade nor 
survive contact with twentieth century civiliza- 
tion. Witness Japan, where the old faiths are 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 107 

being supplanted by various forms of doubt. 
Witness Latin America, where the grosser forms 
of Romanism are giving away as enlightenment 
increases, but only, in too many instances, to 
be followed by so-called "liberalism" and other 
phases of unbelief. Mr. R. A. Hume, in a recent 
work on missions, tells of a Hindu leader who, as 
he contemplated the condition of his people, said : 
"There is no more tragic event under the sun than 
the death of a nation. . . . This awful tragedy 
is now going on in India. The old religion is 
dying, the old morality is dying ; the bonds of cus- 
tom and tradition, which are the bones and sinews 
of the social organism, are dissolving. There are 
death and decomposition all around." It is idle, 
worse than idle, to talk about leaving non-Chris- 
tian nations in the undisturbed possession of their 
religious beliefs. All systems of faith, Christian- 
ity not excepted, are being tested to the utmost. 
Only the truth that is in them will survive. The 
hoary religions of the East, with all their poetic 
beauty, with all their moral failure, are doomed. 
They may linger in some form for a time, but in 
the end they must die. The world must ultimately 
be Christian in its faith or come to an age when 



108 CONQUERING FORCES. 

all faith will perish from the heart of our race. 
A faithless world ! Appalling thought ! The very- 
suggestion fills the soul with nameless dread. 
And yet the irresistible logic of facts drives us 
to the conclusion that only the gospel of our 
Lord can save our posterity from such fate. This 
brings us in sight of the deepest, darkest depths 
of the world's need. Not only must Christ save 
the individual soul from sin and give to it the 
strength and beauty of righteousness — he must 
save the world from the unspeakable doom of a 
faithless and a Godless future. 

Paul stood one day beside the ^Egean Sea and 
heard the cry of a man for help, the appeal of the 
man of Macedonia, and at once the great-souled 
apostle concluded that the Lord had called him 
to preach the gospel in Europe. It was a man's 
appeal for help, but it was God's call to service. 
That call comes to us to-day. A call coming from 
the blazing skies, breaking out of the heavens in 
thunder tones, such a call as came to Saul of Tar- 
sus, might be misunderstood by us. We cannot 
mistake the call that comes in the cry of a needy 
world. This call comes every day from the needy 
ones of our own city, from every wretched home, 



THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 109 

from every darkened life; in mighty volume it 
sweeps across the sea. It is a brother's cry for 
help. It is God's call to service. Can we dis- 
regard such mute but mighty appeals and be 
worthy to bear the name of the compassionate 
Christ? 



THE ARMOR OF LIGHT 



"The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us 
therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put 
on the armor of light." (Rom. xiii. 12.) 



IV. 
THE ARMOR OF LIGHT. 

THE text, first of all, is a statement of the 
changing order of the world and of the 
progressive character of Christianity. It is an 
epitome of the life of faith in the soul and of the 
growth of God's kingdom in the world. Chris- 
tianity is progressive because it is vital ; it grows 
because it lives. "First the blade, then the ear, 
then the full corn in the ear" is the divine order. 
"The path of the just is as the shining light, that 
shineth more and more unto the perfect day," is 
an Old Testament statement of the same truth. 
This is true of the life and worth of organized 
Christianity as well as the experience of the indi- 
vidual believer. It is true of the Church, the state- 
ments of pessimistic unbelief to the contrary not- 
withstanding. I am not unmindful of the imper- 
fections of the Church. Her constituency has 
ever been a thoroughly human constituency. Her 
weaknesses, her faults have been many, and her 
progress has been all too slow ; but from the be- 
8 (113) 



114 CONQUERING FORCES. 

ginning her face has been toward the sunrise and 
her constant effort has been for the uplift of the 
human race. Optimism and progress have been 
her abiding characteristics. I do not hesitate to 
say that in the correctness of her doctrines, in her 
knowledge of the truth, in the loftiness of her 
moral standards, and in the breadth of her human 
sympathies the Church of to-day is well in advance 
of the Church of any former day. And I rejoice 
to believe that the Church of to-morrow, of the 
next generation and the next century, will be 
better than the Church of to-day. The night is 
far spent, the daydawn draws near. Salvation, 
ultimate and glorious salvation for the individual 
and for the race, is nearer than when we first 
believed. 

Connected with this teaching, growing out of 
the great truth herein set forth, is the appeal of 
the text, the challenge to the Church to adjust 
herself to the changing order of the world, to 
equip herself for the work — for the solution of 
the problems and the performance of the tasks 
that result from the changing conditions. Be- 
cause the night is far spent and the day is at hand, 
because the time of dimness and shadows is Dass- 



THE ARMOR OF LIGHT. 



1*5 



ing away and the daydawn draws near, we are 
admonished to put off the works of darkness and 
to put on the armor of light. This teaching is 
vital. It appeals directly to the mind and heart 
of present-day Christianity. If such a call to 
larger vision and more efficient service was need- 
ed by the Church of Rome in the first century, 
how much more is it needed by the Church in 
America in the twentieth century. The Church 
exists to-day and must do her work in the midst 
of changed and changing conditions. We live 
in a new world, the like of which our fathers nev- 
er saw. True, "every age is an age of transition, 
unless, indeed, it be an age of stagnation," but the 
revolutions of the past fifty years have been more 
radical in character and far-reaching in results 
than in any like period of the world's history. 

I. It is not my purpose to discuss the cause or 
the meaning of these changes or even to attempt 
to state their magnitude. I only wish to insist 
that Christian men and Christian Churches must 
recognize the changed situation and intelligently 
address themselves to it. 

1. The Church exists to-day and must do her 
work in the midst of new social conditions. Great 



1 16 CONQ UERING FORCES. 

cities with their congested multitudes, a vast vol- 
ume of foreign immigration that gives us a di- 
verse population, diverse in language, in social 
ideals, in moral standards; well-nigh universal 
intelligence coupled with facilities for constant 
communication; great wealth side by side with 
bitter poverty — poverty all the more bitter be- 
cause intelligent without resignation. These and 
other features of the world's life constitute the 
new social conditions, in the midst of which the 
Church must do her work to-day. 

2. The Church is confronted by intellectual 
problems of a kind that she has not been called 
to deal with in the past. The forms of unbelief 
that troubled our fathers have almost entirely 
passed away. The arguments of Butler and 
Paley and Watson are against phases of infi- 
delity of which we rarely hear. The questions 
with which we must deal, the doubts with which 
we must grapple, the forms of unbelief that we 
must combat are largely the outgrowth of the 
last half century. Research in the realm of phys- 
ical science, the study of comparative religions, 
and the application of the historical method to 
Bible study have made it necessary to rewrite 



THE ARMOR OF LIGHT. 



"7 



Christian apologetics and to write them from a 
different point of view. I have not the shadow 
of a doubt of the ability of the Church to give a 
reason, strong and satisfying, for the faith she 
holds. Indeed, I believe her position is stronger 
to-day than ever before, but she must give the 
grounds of her faith to the world of to-day. 

3. The Church has come to an age of larger 
opportunities and larger demands for service 
than she has known before. We are learning 
to read our commission in world terms and at 
the same time are coming to understand the so- 
cial teaching of our gospel as we have not under- 
stood it before. Our message of salvation and 
our gift of service are for the lowest of the fallen 
and the farthest of the wanderers. The work of 
missions, the work of Christian education, efforts 
for the promotion of temperance and of social 
purity, the crusade for civic righteousness — these 
afford Christian men and women opportunities 
for service and lay upon them a weight of obli- 
gation they have not known before. 

Again I say we have come to a new age of the 
world. Conditions have changed and are chang- 
ing radically and rapidly. It is time for the 



Il8 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Church of God to face the new world and, in 
obedience to the imperious challenge of her Lord, 
to go forth equipped and ready for whatsoever he 
shall bid her do. We hear much of "the good old 
days of our fathers;" and they were good days, 
days of heroic men and of great deeds; but they 
will return no more. The world will not see such 
conditions again ; but I verily believe that it is in 
the power of the Church of God to make of this 
new age into which we have come such a time of 
spiritual blessing and moral progress as the world 
has not seen. 

II. In order to meet the needs of this new age 
and take advantage of the opportunities that open 
wide their doors about us, two things must be 
done: 

i. Our gospel, the old gospel, that gospel that 
is changeless in its spirit and deathless in its 
power, the gospel that evermore thrills with the 
energies of the Holy Ghost, the full message of 
God to the human race, must be preached to all 
men, and preached in terms that will command 
the intellect, arouse the conscience, and move the 
heart of the twentieth century. The resources 
of the Church are fundamental and changeless — • 



THE ARMOR OF LIGHT. ug 

Truth, Love, the Holy Spirit, expressed in our 
gospel, reincarnated in human life. 

2. Our zvork, the work of seeking to save the 
lost, of establishing and upbuilding the kingdom 
of God in the world, must be adapted to the con- 
ditions that prevail in the world about us. Nov- 
elties are not to be adopted because they are novel, 
nor are antiquities to be clung to because they 
are antique. We are to do God's work that comes 
to us to-day in the best way that he makes possi- 
ble to us. 

I am proposing no new order. This has ever 
been the secret of the Church's power and of the 
Church's progress. The disciples who went forth 
from that upper chamber in Jerusalem, thrilled 
and inspired by the experiences of pentecostal 
baptism, were thoroughly spiritual men, but thor- 
oughly sane and practical men as well. They 
were neither idle dreamers nor wild enthusiasts, 
but practical men with a practical message and 
practical methods for the accomplishment of their 
purposes. They interpreted Christ and his gospel 
in terms of their own day. Fearlessly they ap- 
plied their lofty principles to human hearts and 
social customs as they found them. Roman gov- 



120 CONQUERING FORCES. 

ernors and fugitive slaves were addressed in terms 
suited to their stations. The rapid growth of 
apostolic Christianity attests the divine approval 
of their procedure. Martin Luther preached the 
gospel — the old, the changeless gospel — to the 
German people in the age in which he lived. He 
broke through the barriers of dead words and 
effete customs, threw off the power of mere tra- 
ditionalism, and carried the ever-living truth of 
God straight to the ever-needy hearts of the men 
and women about him. Thus he broke the power 
of priestcraft, made plain the way by which the 
soul may approach into the presence of the living 
God, and wrought the reformation of the six- 
teenth century. John Wesley preached the gospel 
to his age and adopted methods of work suited to 
the needs of human life in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. The people heard from him and his co- 
workers "the wonderful words of life" in the 
tongue wherein they were born, and the great 
Wesleyan revival and the organized Methodism of 
the world are partial results of his labors. This 
is the work of the Church to-day. The living 
truth of God, with all of its tender appeal, with 
all of its comforting assurances, with all of its 



THE ARMOR OF LIGHT. 121 

imperious commands, must be preached to the 
men and women of the age in which we live. 
Our message must be boldly addressed to the 
people, the customs, the conditions of to-day. 
Jesus Christ must be proclaimed as the Saviour 
of all men and Lord of all men. He is the right- 
ful Master of the century in which we live as 
surely as he was Master and Lord of the century 
of his incarnate life. The mighty forces of this 
age, our financial magnates, the captains of our 
great industries, the men whose genius creates 
and controls the world's commerce, the world's 
literature, the world's statecraft — all these must 
be challenged to recognize the sovereignty of the 
Son of God. Conscience is supreme in man and 
Christ supreme over conscience. 

III. The Church, with her face toward the new 
day, confronting the mighty tasks to which her 
Lord bids her go forth, must put off the works of 
darkness; she must put on the armor of light; 
she must be equipped for the work that is to be 
done. 

1. The first part of this armor of light to be 
put on by the Church — of the equipment needed 
in order to greater service in this age of greater 



122 CONQUERING FORCES. 

opportunity — is a more intelligent Christianity. 
The Church must know her mission, she must 
know her resources, she must know the best 
means to be employed for the accomplishment 
of her ends. Aimless effort will be fruitless 
effort. Ignorance hampers and limits always 
and everywhere. Education must increase. 
The value of Christian schools as factors in the 
progress of God's kingdom must be more fully 
appreciated. But by a more intelligent Chris- 
tianity I mean much more than this. Clear-eyed, 
far-reaching vision is needed. We must know 
the world in which we are to work. We must 
know men and social conditions. We must note 
the trend of events and read the "signs of the 
times." The Church should know the population 
with which she is to deal as thoroughly as any 
politician knows the voters in his precinct. No 
business house should be more diligent in the 
upbuilding of patronage than Christian work- 
ers in winning men for Christ and the Church. 
Brush arbors and country schoolhouses and the 
occasional circuit rider were well adapted to 
conditions fifty years ago, but we must build and 
plan and organize to meet the need of twentieth 



THE ARMOR OF LIGHT. 123 

century life. The world is doing business on a 
large scale. The world adopts the wisest means 
for the accomplishment of great ends, and the 
children of light must be equally wise in their 
generation if they are to command the respect 
and control the thought of the world in which 
they live. But most of all the Church must 
know her great Book; she must know her mes- 
sage; she must know that truth which is at once 
her supremest treasure and the instrument of her 
greatest power. A more intelligent Christianity 
is a part of the equipment needed for the work of 
this new age. 

2. A more vital and robust faith is needed. 
Progress and conquest in the moral world are 
possible only in an age of great faith. I am not 
overcareful about the terms in which a man may 
state his faith. It is easy to attach too much im- 
portance to formulas and too little to facts, too 
much to the terms of a creed and too little to the 
substance of the faith. Our need to-day is faith 
in the living God, who spoke to the fathers in 
times past by the prophets, who gave his great 
message to the world in his Son, and who still 
speaks to men by the Holy Spirit. We discuss 



124 CONQUERING FORCES. 

various questions of a Christological sort. I 
would not intimate that any question concerning 
the nature or the work of our Lord is without 
interest or importance to men, but there is just 
one question touching the person of Christ that 
is of supreme importance to the Church or to 
the world to-day : Is he able to save men, to save 
any man, to save all men? Has he power to 
uplift the world from its degradation and author- 
ity to command its mightiest forces in their on- 
ward movement ? A living and robust faith in a 
living and Almighty Christ is the supreme need 
of the Church to-day. When she falters at this 
point, she is shorn of her strength. Her leaders 
and heralds must speak in no uncertain tones 
when they proclaim the saving power of the Son 
of God. Faith is contagious. Conviction begets 
conviction. Men who believe and therefore speak 
lay hold on the heart of the world. This is an 
essential part of the armor of light. 

3. The Church of to-day needs a deeper and 
more practical consecration. I know this term 
"consecration" has suffered much in popular es- 
teem because it has so often been heard on the 
lips of cant. Too often men have talked about 



THE ARMOR OF LIGHT. 125 

consecration while seeking to further selfish ends. 
But it is a great word. It stands for a great 
truth. What more inspiring thing can be found 
in all the world than the gift of a life, a great life, 
to a noble cause? The Son of God came on the 
greatest mission the world has known, and to 
accomplish that great work he made the greatest 
of all gifts — he gave himself. That is the spirit 
the Church needs to-day — gifts of life for God 
and the world. That does not mean all for the 
mission field, though the call is loud and clear 
and urgent for men and means for the advance- 
ment of the kingdom in the uttermost parts of 
the earth. It dees not mean all for the ministry 
at home, though the need was never greater for 
strong men in our pulpits. But it does mean that 
men and women, wherever they serve God, are 
to serve with a whole heart — as much devotion 
to God and his service by the business man in his 
office as by the missionary on the foreign field; 
as much loyalty to Christ and his kingdom by 
the woman who stands in the highest social posi- 
tion at home as by the woman who teaches Chi- 
nese or Hottentots on some far-ofl shore; one 
Christ and one kingdom and one standard of de- 



126 CONQUERING FORCES. 

votion for God's children everywhere. Life is 
glorified by sacrifice. It comes to its fullest 
measure of power in self-giving. - Filled with 
this spirit, the Church will "arise and shine" until 
the ends of the earth shall be drawn to her by 
the glory of her life. O that the Church might 
enter, not the kingdom of glory, but into her 
glorious kingdom, the kingdom of love and serv- 
ice ! This is the kingdom that is to fill the earth 
with its power and crown the earth with its 
beauty. 

The night is far spent, the time of darkness is 
passing. Already the east is bright with the 
promise and the splendor of the coming day. 
Beams of light, like herald angels, tell of the ad- 
vent and the ascent of the Sun of Righteousness. 
It is time to awake. It is an hour of pressing 
opportunity. Let us cast off the works of dark- 
ness. Let us put on the armor of light and 
stand ready and equipped for the summons and 
the service of the coming King. 



THE WORLD'S EPOCHAL HOUR. 



"Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the 
prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted 
up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he 
said, signifying what death he should die." (John xii. 

3I-33-) 



V. 
THE WORLD'S EPOCHAL HOUR. 

THE incarnate life of our Lord was the turn- 
ing point in the world's history. His brief 
sojourn in the flesh was the watershed of the 
ages. The accepted chronology of the civilized 
world attests the correctness of this statement. 
Our great commercial transactions, our inter- 
national covenants, the record of our own marked 
days of sorrow or of joy point back to the time 
when he was born in Bethlehem of Judea. This 
truth, so readily perceived when once announced, 
is of profound importance and far-reaching sig- 
nificance. It is an admission of the epochal char- 
acter of the ministry of Jesus in this world. 

Two or three aspects of this truth may be con- 
sidered in a preliminary way before attempting 
an exposition of the text as a whole : 

i. Only Jesus knew the epochal character of 

his life and work. Little did the world dream, as 

it paid homage to its Caesars, its Herods, its 

Gamaliels, its warriors and statesmen, that an 

9 (129) 



I 3 o CONQUERING FORCES. 

obscure Galilean teacher was destined to stand 
in all after ages as the central figure in human 
history, the one supreme Person from whom, 
backward and forward, the centuries would be 
reckoned. The world seems ever unconscious of 
the crises through which it passes. Even his dis- 
ciples, that little group of favored ones who lived 
in the innermost circle of his influence and felt 
the constant charm of his matchless life, even 
they did not fully know him or realize the great- 
ness of his mission in the world. 

2. Jesus also knew, what even now we are slow 
to grasp, that his death was the all-significant fact 
in his earthly career. That, in a preeminent sense, 
was cosmic in the scope of its influence. His 
teachings surpass all the utterances of men. His 
works separate him from all the sons of earth; 
but it is his sacrificial death that has most pro- 
foundly impressed the world. 

The key to our text is found in the meaning of 
the word "judgment" as it is used in this connec- 
tion. We are accustomed to associate with that 
term the idea of the great assize, the day of des- 
tiny, when all nations shall be assembled in the 
presence of the Supreme Judge to receive their 



THE WORLD'S EPOCHAL HOUR. 



131 



final awards. But the word is not used in that 
sense here. I believe it is never so used in the 
gospel by St. John. Here it means "crisis." In- 
deed, that is the Greek term used in this place. 
As Jesus stood in the deepening shadows that 
were so soon to close in awful darkness about 
him, he said, "Now is the judgment of this 
world," now the world's destiny is to be deter- 
mined — this is the crisis of human history, the 
epochal hour of all the ages. History records 
for us the thrilling story of decisive battles when 
the fate of nations and of civilizations hung on 
the issue of a single conflict — as at Marathon and 
Tours and Hastings and Waterloo. These were 
epochs in the history of the world. Philosophic 
science, with wider vision, suggests that there 
were epochal periods in the creative processes of 
the Almighty and points backward to a time the 
imagination can scarcely reach, the beginning of 
motion, the first stir of energy, the beginning of 
life, the first thrill of vitality in the world, the 
beginning of consciousness, when first life knew 
itself. One by one God unleashed these mighty 
forces and bade them go forth to do his will. 
These were epochs in the history of creation. 



I 3 2 CONQUERING FORCES. 

But Jesus said that the hour in which he ap- 
proached his cross, the hour in which should be 
consummated his offering for the world's deliv- 
erance — that was the epochal hour of all the 
ages. 

In two short but marvelously suggestive and 
comprehensive statements he indicates the factors 
that enter into and constitute the crisis of which 
he spake: "Now shall the prince of this world be 
cast out." "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men 
unto me." "The prince of this world" of course 
refers to Satan, the personal head of moral evil in 
the universe. We do not know a great deal about 
Satan. In the Old Testament there are only a 
few direct references to him, some five or six in 
all. Indeed, in no place is there any direct teach- 
ing concerning the nature and character of the 
evil one; it is not too much to say that it is all 
incidental. But with the increasing light of rev- 
alation, as God's truth shines out more and more 
with the passing ages, there is seen with ever- 
increasing distinctness the dark outlines of a ma- 
lignant personal power. More distinctly in the 
Gospels than elsewhere is he seen as the head and 
leader of the evil in the world. He is "the god 



THE WORLD'S EPOCHAL HOUR. 133 

of this world," "the prince of the power of the 
air," the evil one in a preeminent sense. All this 
meaning attached to the terms when Jesus said: 
"Now shall the prince of this world be cast out." 
Not that the power of evil was to be wholly broken 
and the prince of darkness utterly dethroned at 
this time. Many a dark and dreary day must 
pass ere that is fully accomplished. Nor were 
all men to be actually drawn to Jesus in the hour 
of his death. Only a few knew that the Prophet 
of Nazareth was dying; a still smaller number 
were immediately impressed by the tragedy of 
the cross. But that was the crisis. In that hour 
the issues of history were determined, the tide 
of the world's life was turned, the power of evil 
received its death stroke ; while truth, righteous- 
ness, love, embodied in Jesus Christ, began a de- 
cisive movement toward certain and complete tri- 
umph. That was the world's judgment day— the 
epochal hour of all the ages. 

There was adequate reason for this profound 
and startling statement of our Lord. That hour 
marked the advent of a new force in the moral 
world. We devoutly believe that the death of Je- 
sus, the spirit of sacrifice that was manifest on the 



134 



CONQUERING FORCES. 



cross, had its gracious results on the Godward 
side. Depths of the divine nature, depths that we 
cannot fathom, were touched, and atonement was 
made for all our race. "He was the propitiation 
for our sins." Evidently Jesus was speaking here 
of a force that would be brought into the world 
in consequence of his being "lifted up," a force 
operating on the human side, one that would 
touch the heart of man and transform the char- 
acter of the world's life. That new, transcend- 
ent, transforming force was God's love for the 
world expressed in the sacrifice of Jesus of Naz- 
areth. Israel of old had received a message of 
Jehovah's love, the assurance given to devout 
hearts of compassion in the Infinite. But it was 
only a message, and not always full and distinct. 
Outside of Israel, not even a message had been 
given. The great world rolled on in its sin and 
its suffering, with its hunger of heart and anguish 
of soul, with never a dream of the wealth of love 
in the heart of God. In Jesus, God's love for 
the world was made manifest. It was laid open 
to its deepest depths. Jesus gave himself. "God 
was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." 
That was a new force in the world. Nothing like 



THE WORLD'S EPOCHAL HOUR. 135 

it had been known in all the past. It was as really 
an epoch in the moral life of the world as the be- 
ginning of motion or of life or of thought had 
marked epochs in their lower spheres. The power 
of love has been told and sung a thousand times, 
and yet its power is untold and unsung because it 
is unknown. In depths and heights it "passeth 
knowledge." "Literature is but a splendid tomb 
which genius has built as a monument to love." 
(Fairbairn.) We do know that love's supreme 
manifestation is in sacrifice. Love gives itself. 
Only when love ceases to be a passion to possess 
and becomes a passion to give is it Christian love. 
So God's love, the greatest love, expressed itself 
in the world's supreme sacrifice. We may believe 
that the extreme sufferings of Jesus were not 
necessary to make atonement for the world's sin, 
but they were necessary to accomplish the world's 
salvation. Gethsemane and Golgotha were not 
required to satisfy a divine law, but they were 
needed to reveal the divine heart and thus subdue 
the heart of man. Jesus saw this truth, hence the 
unusual terms in which he spoke of his death : "I, 
if I be lifted up." His lifting up on the cross, 
tragic, painful, awful as it was, was the parable 



1-6 CONQUERING FORCES. 



of a glorious truth. It was in suffering that love 
bared its mighty arm and seized the scepter of 
its empire. On the cross it found the place of 
supremest power, and from that cross it is des- 
tined yet to rule the world. This is the power of 
which Paul speaks so often and so earnestly : "The 
power that worketh in us ;" "the exceeding great- 
ness of his power to usward who believe;" the 
power of the gospel, or God's power in the gos- 
pel — power to save man from sin, crown him 
with righteousness, and usher him into eternal 
life. 

But we must not conclude for a moment that 
our gospel is only a sentiment. Great as love is, 
the gospel is more than love. It is a body of high- 
est truth; it is deepest, strongest reason; it is a 
chart of noblest duty ; it is a record of brightest 
promise. But it is truth, reason, service, hope, 
aglow with the light of love, athrob v/ith the 
life and power of love. Truth, even abstract 
truth, is mighty. Crushed to earth, it will rise 
again; "the eternal years of God are hers." 
Truth, with the soul of love in it, is deathless and 
well-nigh resistless. Truth spoken in love — that 
is the gospel — the saving, glorious, conquering 



THE WORLD'S EPOCHAL HOUR. 137 

gospel, by which Jesus is to draw the world unto 
himself. 



Let us note for a moment the outlook and out- 
reach of this love. "I will draw all men unto me." 
It is the nature of this love to reach the next man. 
Touched by the great magnet, the soul becomes 
magnetic and is charged with power to attract the 
soul beyond. From life to life is the method by 
which the cross is to reach the race. How far 
will God's love reach? How many will it em- 
brace ? Jesus says all men. We must not modify 
or limit this great utterance of our Lord. "All 
men!" All may not yield to the drawings of 
sacrificial love, all will not yield, but all men of 
all lands and all ages shall feel the grip of that 
moral force that goes forth from the cross. All 
shall feel the swell and surge of that tide that 
sets toward the shores of life. All men? The 
Churchless and Godless masses? The outcasts 
of society? The vast millions of non-Christian 
lands ? Will this love reach down into all depths 
and out into all darknesses ? All men ? O Christ, 
give us of thy sublime faith until all questioning 
shall vanish from our hearts and we can say with 



1 38 CONQUERING FORCES. 

thy calm confidence, "All men." All drawn to 
God by the spiritual magnetism of the cross ! 

There is also in this passage a suggestion at 
least of the uplifting power of this love. It is 
love's nature to elevate. The soul conscious of 
being loved feels the greatest lifting power in 
God's universe. It is also true that no soul ever 
loved, really loved anything, without being ele- 
vated by the indwelling of such an affection. 
The purer and stronger the love, the greater the 
power to elevate. To what heights will God's, 
love for man and man's responsive love to God — 
to what splendid summits of experience and char- 
acter will this love lift the soul of man? Jesus 
says, "Unto me." Up to his standards of char- 
acter, up to his lofty ideals of life, up into his 
sacred fellowship with the Father, up where we 
may share with him the vision of the eternal 
world. The redeemed, even in this life, are 
made to "sit together in heavenly places in Christ 
Jesus." 

This is our gospel — God's good news to the 
world. The souls that grope in darkness, souls 
in the grip of evil forces, enslaved by sin, en- 



THE WORLD'S EPOCHAL HOUR. 139 

chained by passion, these may be freed from their 
bonds and brought into the blessed fellowship of 
the children of God. The redeeming power of 
the Son of God has been demonstrated ten thou- 
sand times. John and Paul, Augustine and Thom- 
as a Kempis, John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards, 
a mighty army of saintly souls that have passed 
up through great tribulation and stand, white- 
robed, in the presence of the King — these are 
the trophies of his saving power and pledges of 
the sufficiency of his grace for all the needs of a 
sinful world. This force is as certain as gravi- 
tation. The uplifting power of our gospel is 
manifest on every side. The scarred hand is un- 
derneath the world's life and is ever lifting it to 
higher levels. This kingdom cometh not with 
observation. No blaring trumpets nor flaunting 
banners proclaim its progress. But silently, 
ceaselessly, certainly, as God works in the world 
above us, so he works in the realm of the spirit. 
Wherever life is being lifted to higher levels, 
wherever human spirits are becoming less self- 
ish and more Christlike, wherever the horizon 
of service grows broader and the voice of duty 
becomes more divine, there are to be found 



140 CONQUERING FORCES. 

the silent but mighty forces of the kingdom of 
God. 

A few weeks ago I was in the City cf Mexico. 
From the palace of Chapultepec I had an en- 
trancing view of the valleys and mountains that 
stretched away on every side. Far to the south 
stood Mexico's loftiest peak, Popocatepetl — "Old 
Popo," as he is familiarly called by the people. 
There he stands in silent grandeur, towering far 
up toward the heavens, while on his head rests 
a white crown of the unmelting snows. How 
came that snowy crown on the mountain's sum- 
mit? There came from the sun invisible but ir- 
resistible forces that lifted the. sea out of itself. 
Out of the mists the clouds were formed; they 
were lifted far up into the clear, cold atmosphere, 
away from the world, and there by invisible hands 
Old Popo's crystal crown was wrought. Look 
out on the world to-day. See where human life 
has been raised to its highest levels, where purest 
spirits and saintliest characters are found ; look on 
these white summits of the world's best civiliza- 
tion, and you will find that they have been lifted 
out of self and up to God by the silent but mighty 
forces of the gospel of our Lord. 



THE WORLD'S EPOCHAL HOUR. 141 

O the power, the outreach, the uplift of God's 
love as expressed in the sacrifice of his Son! 
These words of Jesus are broadly, profoundly, 
gloriously true. It was an omniscient eye that 
pierced the darkness of that night of seeming de- 
feat and saw beyond the triumphs of the age to 
come. That was "the judgment of this world," 
the crucial hour in the history of our race. Not 
yet has the prince of this world been wholly cast 
out, not yet has the uplifted Christ drawn all men 
unto himself, but the work goes on. The arm of 
his love is underneath the world. The movement 
is upward. The end is sure. God speed the day. 



THE BREAD OF LIFE. 



"And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: 
he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that 
believeth on me shall never thirst." (John vi. 35.) 



VI. 

THE BREAD OF LIFE. 

THE fourth Gospel has been not inaptly called 
"the Gospel of spiritual insight." The writ- 
er was a man of vision in the truest meaning of 
that term. The experiences of Patmos preceded 
this record of the words and works of our Lord. 
It is not too much to say that John saw Jesus, the 
incarnate Word, the eternal Son, as no other man 
ever saw him. To him the miracles were "signs" 
— he constantly speaks of them as such. They 
were types and parables of great truths — of prin- 
ciples and forces that were vital and immanent in 
the invisible world. Because of his unusual intel- 
lectual gifts and spiritual aptitude he was able to 
perceive and to preserve for us those deep, rich, 
and profoundly spiritual aspects of the teaching 
of Jesus that are characteristic of this Gospel. It 
is John alone who records the conversation with 
the woman of Samaria, the interview with Nico- 
demus, the discourse in the synagogue at Caper- 
naum, and those great utterances of the evening 
to ( x 45) 



146 CONQUERING FORCES. 

immediately preceding the crucifixion. It is to 
John that we are indebted for these beautiful, 
suggestive, helpful words of the Master that I 
have just read, "I am the bread of life." 

Of course the language is figurative. It is the 
truth in the figure that is of value. Let us endeav- 
or to see it and to appropriate it in this service. 

It would be interesting and profitable to study 
this word "life" as it occurs in New Testament 
teaching — the meaning put into the term by Jesus 
and by those who received their thought directly 
from him. Several terms are used. Just now I 
can only remind you that again and again Jesus 
spoke of a life of faith, a life of service, a life of 
union and fellowship with God, simply as life. 
"He that heareth my word, and believeth on him 
that sent me ... is passed from death unto 
life." "He that hath the Son hath life." "I am 
come that they might have life." "Strait is the 
gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto 
life." You will observe that in these passages 
Jesus did not say religious life or spiritual life or 
eternal life, though this last phrase was often used 
by him. He simply said life; but he compressed 



THE BREAD OF LIFE. 147 

and expressed in that single word depths, heights, 
riches of meaning far beyond all that we mean by 
these expressions that I have just used. He would 
teach us by his use of the term that any other life 
being on a scale less lofty than this is not worthy 
to be called life. Paul expressed the same truth 
when he spoke of this as "life indeed." Life as 
well as immortality was "brought to light in the 
gospel." 

Consider also the manifold relation that Jesus 
sustains to this life. He is "the life." He is the 
Author and the Lord of life, having power to 
create and to control. He is also the sustenance 
of life, the nourishment of life. This is the 
teaching of the passage before us, "I am the bread 
of life." 

What is bread? The dictionaries tell us that 
it is "food; the support of life in general," and 
that definition is sufficient for our purposes. 
Bread in its generic sense consists of those sub- 
stances that are necessary to keep up the physical 
structure, to repair the waste of the body, and to 
supply the forces necessary for the activities of 
life — these substances put into palatable and as- 



148 CONQUERING FORCES. 

similable form. We are told that the human body 
is composed of some fifteen or twenty substances 
—iron, sulphur, phosphorus, sodium, calcium, 
and the rest — and as these waste away they must 
be replaced in the form of nourishment — bread. 
All nourishment for the physical man comes from 
the material world whence the body comes. And 
yet no particle of bread comes to us directly from 
the material world. It comes to us always through 
the ministry of life. Life in some form must 
reach out its mystic hand and gather from soil 
and atmosphere, from sunshine and showers those 
necessary substances — the iron and the phosphor- 
us and the other things — that I need and bring 
them up within my reach. The soil on which I 
stand and the atmosphere that envelops my body 
may hold in greatest abundance the elements that 
must contribute the food I need; but unless life 
shall mediate between me and the inorganic 
world, I must perish for lack of bread. 

Not only are we dependent on life for the acqui- 
sition of bread, but in every instance, directly or 
indirectly, the ministry of death is likewise a ne- 
cessity. Not only must life serve us by gathering 
up and putting into palatable form the nourish- 



THE BREAD OF LIFE. 



149 



ment we need, but it must further serve us by 
yielding up itself in order that we may have 
bread. Science may dream of a day when we 
shall take directly from the inorganic world our 
supply of food, but that day has not yet dawned. 
We have not lived for one single moment but by 
life given for us. And this fact, I must believe, 
was designed by the all-wise Father to be educa- 
tive. The very order of nature is sacramental, 
preparing us to receive that greater, higher truth, 
the counterpart in the spiritual world of what we 
see in the material world — the truth taught by 
Jesus when he said, "I am the bread of life" — 
life in its higher and diviner character, the life of 
the soul, the life that is spiritual in its quality and 
eternal in its possibilities, that life must have 
bread; it must be sustained, satisfied, developed. 
The mind needs truth as certainly as the blood 
needs iron. The heart cries out for love, it hun- 
gers for sympathy and affection, and the con- 
science clamors for the assurance of peace as truly 
as the body needs phosphorus or sodium or any 
other element that enters into the composition of 
flesh and blood and bone and brain. Man, the 
physical being, needs bread from below ; man, 



150 CONQUERING FORCES. 

the immortal spirit, needs bread from above. And 
this bread of life comes to us from the upper 
world just as bread conies to us from the lower 
world — through the ministry of life and death. 
The truth that is in Gcd, truth that satisfies the 
mind ; the love that is in God, love that meets all 
the passionate hunger of the soul ; the righteous- 
ness and peace that are in the infinite heart above 
— all the spiritual qualities and forces that vitalize 
and enrich the mortal nature were embodied in 
Jesus Christ and brought into such form that we 
can receive them. In him they are to us the 
bread of life. "The Word was made flesh." "The 
bread of God is he which cometh down from 
heaven, and giveth life unto the world." 

Bread is to be eaten. We must partake of it 
in order to be benefited by it. Loaves are not for 
ornament, nor for object lessons, but for food. I 
might know many things about bread and have 
great admiration for it, I might discourse never 
so learnedly about its relation to life and its worth 
to the race, I might pay the grocer for the finest 
flour and take my place at the table three times a 
day, but all of that would not satisfy hunger or 



THE BREAD OF LIFE. 151 

sustain life. I must eat bread if I would live and 
grow. In like manner we may know many things 
about Christ, admire his teachings, marvel at his 
mighty works ; we may pay homage to the purity 
and majesty of his matchless character, we may 
wonder and rejoice at the sweep of his influence 
through the nations and the ages — we may do all 
that and more and yet fail to feed upon the Bread 
of Life. We must partake of Christ. The Rom- 
ish doctrine of transubstantiation is but a per- 
version, though a gross and destructive perver- 
sion, of this vital truth. I suppose that in the 
literal flesh of Jesus there was no more of life- 
giving power than there was in the flesh of John 
or Peter. He told them plainly that "the flesh 
profiteth nothing: the words I speak unto you, 
they are spirit, and they are life." We must par- 
take of those spiritual qualities that differentiate 
Jesus from John and from all other men. His 
love, his sympathy, his faith, his peace, his spirit — 
these must be received into our minds, they must 
be vital in our hearts, they must be wrought into 
cur characters. St. Francis meditated until he 
bore the stigmata of his Lord. We must "be par- 
takers of the divine nature." There must actually 



1 52 CONQUERING FORCES. 

enter into us and become the very essence and 
spirit of our lives the mind that was in Christ 
Jesus. This is to have the life of God in the soul. 
This is to realize the deepest, fullest meaning of 
sonship in the divine family. This is to be a 
Christian. Nothing else is. 

Shall we inquire more directly about the proc- 
ess of eating? How may we partake of the Bread 
of Life? / can only say it is by faith. We read 
our Bibles, we listen to the proclamation of the 
gospel, we utter words of prayer, we partake of 
the holy communion, we use all the means that 
God has provided, but the hand of faith must 
reach up through the Bible and out beyond the 
sermon and down beneath the sacraments and lay 
hold of those spiritual truths that constitute the 
divinely appointed food for the soul. If the in- 
quiry be pressed further than that, we must con- 
fess ignorance. Further knowledge is beyond 
our grasp. When I eat bread, I do not think of 
the process — I do not even know the process — by 
which the particles of food are transmuted into 
flesh and blood and brain. I do not consider how 
the body is being built up, how the nerves are 



THE BREAD OF LIFE. 153 

being repaired, how the red currents that leap 
along the veins are being purified and strength- 
ened. There are men who can tell us much about 
these processes, but the multitudes eat and live 
without knowledge or thought of such things. 
So, believingly, we receive the gospel, we use 
the means that God has given, and in so doing 
we feed on the living bread and live and grow 
up into the fullness of the stature of the living 
Christ. 

Consider the reasons for eating bread. What 
is its final ministry to life? This has been, in 
some measure, anticipated. 

1. Bread sustains life. No form of life that 
we know can exist without nourishment. The 
plant in your garden will die unless from soil and 
atmosphere it receives its needed food. The bird 
in your room will die if it is not fed. Your body 
cannot live without bread. So the soul must be 
nourished if it is to live and grow. The mind 
will die unless it feeds on truth. The heart with- 
out love will lose the power to love and therefore 
perish. We must feed on Christ or die. We won- 
der at our leanness of soul, our lack of strength ; 



I 54 CONQUERING FORCES. 

we bewail the imperfection of character and the 
insufficiency of our experience. May we not at- 
tribute our weakness, our imperfections, to the 
fact that we are starving our souls despite the 
abundant provision that God has made for us? 
We may come to church as regularly as we go to 
our meals, we may contribute to the Church as 
promptly as we pay our grocer, but we must feed 
on the Bread of Life. Nothing can be a substi- 
tute for that. 

2. Bread satisfies hunger. Hunger is a mon- 
itor within that reminds us of the needs of the 
physical man. It is the appeal of the body for 
bread. But there is a higher hunger — the crav- 
ing of the spiritual life for its needed nourish- 
ment. The old Hebrew poet voiced the feeling of 
the universal heart when he said: "As the hart 
panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my 
soul after thee, O God." All history bears wit- 
ness to the reality and constancy of man's need 
of, and quest after, things divine. Altar fires 
blaze in every century. Temples and shrines in 
every land attest man's efforts to find God; by 
these he has been "feeling after him if haply he 
might find him." Equally clear is the testimony 



THE BREAD OF LIFE. 155 

of history and of human experience that the 
world's best gifts are in themselves but empty 
husks to the hungry soul of man. I would not 
underestimate the value of temporal blessings or 
fail to appreciate the desirable things of the world 
—the comforts of home, the abundance of means, 
the opportunities of power, the esteem of our 
fellow men. He is blind and ungrateful who de- 
spises these gifts. But in themselves they do not 
satisfy. Strife and bitterness may dwell beneath 
vaulted ceilings, and broken hearts may be found 
in the midst of luxurious appointments. "This 
world can never give the bliss for which we sigh." 
But the Bread of Life, received in all its richness 
and abundance, satisfies. Joining the Church will 
not do it. The observance of rites will not be 
sufficient. Even knowing about Christ is not 
enough. But partaking of him, receiving him 
into the heart and mind, will satisfy the deepest 
cravings and the highest aspirations of the hu- 
man heart. We know this is true. Feed on him 
until your hungry soul shall rejoice in the abun- 
dance of his peace. 

3. Bread eaten not only sustains and satisfies, 
but it develops life, gives strength, and thus makes, 



156 CONQUERING FORCES. 

service possible. All the expenditure of human 
energy is really an expression of bread. This 
building is the result of human effort — it repre- 
sents the expenditure of force. These stones were 
quarried and cut and moved and placed in these 
walls. The wood was once in forest trees; the 
trees were felled and sawed and moved and 
planed and the lumber placed in these walls by 
human hands. And so of iron and glass and all 
the parts of the building. Machinery was used, 
of course, but the machinery was directed and 
controlled by human strength. This building 
represents an investment of human force, and 
that force came out of bread. Our cities, our 
railroads, our works of art, all the marvels and 
the might of our material civilization are in a very 
true sense expressions of bread transmuted into 
human energy and directed by human skill. The 
highest end attained by feeding on the Bread of 
Life is the acquirement of strength, moral power, 
spiritual energy, that may be expended in the 
service of our fellow men. The uplifting move- 
ments of human history, the great deeds of spirit- 
ual prowess, the moral victories that have given 
greatest blessing and highest renown to human 



THE BREAD OF LIFE. 



157 



life — these have been but manifestations of life 
and strength received by faithful souls as they 
have been partakers of the divine nature. In this 
way we may give Christ anew to the world. Jesus 
multiplied the loaves and fishes and fed a hungry 
multitude. In a very large and true sense we 
may multiply the spiritual resources of the Christ 
himself and feed and satisfy a hungry world. 

Let us feed on him — partake of the living 
Bread until life, abundant life, fills and thrills 
every fiber of our being; feed on him until every 
deep desire of the soul has been satisfied; and 
then, rejoicing in his strength realized in the inner 
man, let us give ourselves and thus give him 
anew to the world. 



THE VALUE OF FAITH. 



"That the trial of your faith, being much more precious 
than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, 
might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the 
appearing of Jesus Christ." (i Pet. i. 7.) 



VII. 

THE VALUE OF FAITH. 

THIS first chapter of the Epistle of St. Peter 
is so rich in its teachings, the great thoughts 
that were in the mind of the apostle so link them- 
selves together, that it is with some difficulty that 
we detach a single verse or a distinct subject for 
special consideration. This passage, though not 
a complete sentence in itself, speaks of the value 
of faith, the trial of faith, and the triumph of 
faith; and this faith rests upon the invisible but 
everliving Christ as its object and issues in eter- 
nal salvation as its final result. You can see at 
once into how wide a field a full discussion of 
this text would lead. It is my purpose to speak 
of only one aspect of the truth, the value of 
Christian faith. This is an old theme and lacks 
the charm of novelty. My reason for the selec- 
tion and discussion of this subject is its practical 
importance, its vital relation to the life of the 
individual and the progress of the race. That 
ii (161) 



162 CONQUERING FORCES. 

ought to enlist and hold the interest of every 
thoughtful man. 

That inspiration of the Divine Spirit that guar- 
anteed trustworthiness and the sufficiency of the 
Holy Scriptures did not destroy the personality 
or remove all the peculiarities of the individual 
writers. In his earlier years St. Peter had been 
accustomed to estimate the value of a night's toil 
in the sea by its equivalent in silver and gold, its 
market price in current coin. More than once in 
this chapter he uses the same terms to express his 
highest thought of earthly values as he put them 
in contrast with the higher values of the spiritual 
realm. "Ye were not redeemed with corruptible 
things as silver and gold, but with the precious 
blood of Jesus Christ." Here faith is declared to 
be "more precious than gold which perisheth, 
though it be tried with fire." Gold, tested gold, 
that in the furnace has been purged of its dross 
and raised to the highest degree of purity, will 
ultimately perish; but the faith of which he 
speaks, the faith more precious than gold, will 
endure unto the appearing of Jesus Christ. 

Let us submit this teaching of the apostle to the 
most searching consideration; let us apply to it 



THE VALUE OF FAITH. 163 

the most practical tests. Is his estimate of the 
value of faith a correct estimate? Is the state- 
ment of the text a true statement? If such in- 
quiries should seem to be irreverent, I assure you 
that nothing could be further from my thought 
than an irreverent treatment of this subject, but 
we owe it to ourselves to be thoroughly sincere 
as we endeavor to answer these questions. 

I. First of all, let us understand what we mean 
by the terms that we use. In apostolic teaching 
faith was not a technical term; certainly it was 
not such in the teaching of our Lord. It was a 
living word; it stood for a vital truth. It did not 
stand for a theological conception, but expressed 
a human experience. It is in that vital and prac- 
tical sense that I use the term. We may say, 
speaking broadly, that Christian faith consists of 
belief and trust. I suppose the apostles did not 
thus analyze faith; they did not consciously an- 
alyze it at all; no more did Adam analyze the 
atmosphere of paradise; but then, as now, the 
atmosphere was composed of its constituent ele- 
ments, and in the days of our Lord, as now, faith 
had its elements of belief and trust. 

1. In order to the possession and exercise of 



164 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Christian faith man must believe the essential 
teachings of the Christian system. I will not 
undertake to state with exactness just what the 
essentials of Christian faith are — just how much 
a man must believe, how large his creed must be 
in order to have a Christian faith. But he must 
believe in the living God, the God revealed in 
Christ — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ; 
he must believe in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of 
man and the Deliverer of the world; he must 
believe in man as a being, capable and worthy of 
salvation; he must believe in a trustworthy rec- 
ord of God's revelation of himself and of his will 
concerning man. This much, at least, is involved 
in Christian faith. This faith is wholly rational. 
It rests upon evidence. We believe these great 
teachings of Christianity for the same reason that 
we believe the facts of American history or the 
principles of physical science because there is 
sufficient evidence to assure us of their truth. 
Not the same kind of evidence, but sufficient. It 
was Dr. Mark Hopkins, I think, who said : "We 
ought not to believe anything unless it is more 
reasonable to believe it than to disbelieve it." We 
can well afford to accept that statement and stand 



THE VALUE OF FAITH. 165 

by it at all times. Faith, in some of its aspects, 
may be superrational, but irrational never. I 
cannot now state the evidence on which this faith 
rests for support, but I believe it to be as strong 
as God could make it without impinging on hu- 
man freedom. God does not compel us to be- 
lieve; he does not coerce men in the realm of 
moral life by overwhelming evidence, or other- 
wise. 

2. Christian faith also has the element of trust, 
implicit confidence reposed in the living Christ. 
This is far more than any system of doctrine, any 
body of truth, however well expressed, however 
firmly held. This is faith in God's only-begotten 
Son, who was given for us, who is alive for ever- 
more, to whom has been given all power in heaven 
and earth, in whom we trust. And my trust in 
Christ, that divine Friend whom I have not seen, 
does not differ in kind from my trust in the human 
friend whom I see face to face. I believe in him 
because I am assured that he is trustworthy. He 
is able and willing to do for me all that I need. 
This faith increases in scope and power with in- 
creasing experience. Faith leads to closer fellow- 
ship with Christ, and closer fellowship with him 



166 CONQUERING FORCES. 

begets, in turn, stronger faith. We have "ex- 
ceeding great and precious promises," we rejoice 
in them, we revel in them as in priceless wealth ; 
but faith, full-orbed, robust faith, reaches beyond 
all promises and rests upon Christ himself. 

A body of truth believed; trust in a Person, 
the personal and living Christ — these constitute 
Christian faith, the faith declared by St. Peter 
to be more precious than tested gold. I am not 
now discussing the correctness of this faith. Only 
incidentally have I touched upon the foundations 
on which it rests. But I insist on its reality as a 
fact in human life. To some it may be only a 
form of words. There are many who, as Carlyle 
would say, "only believe that they believe." But 
there are others, many others, to whom this faith 
is a real and a vital experience. 

II. It is this real and vital faith that is of su- 
preme value in this practical world in which we 
live. 

i. This faith is of value as the basis of char- 
acter and a source of strength in individual life. 
Character is the supreme thing in this world. 
Position and possessions are only incidents. 
"Rank is but the guinea's stamp. A man's a man 



THE VALUE OF FAITH. 167 

for a' that." Judged by any true standard, the 
character of Paul was of greater force and great- 
er value than the splendor of the Caesars or the 
glory of their empire. Martin Luther was worth 
more to Germany and to the world than Charles 
V. or Leo X. A great character is no chance 
product. It must be based on great principles 
and fashioned under the influence of great mo- 
tives. The principles involved in Christian faith, 
the Christian view of God, of man, and of the 
world, of providence and history, of duty and des- 
tiny — these constitute the only adequate basis for 
strongest, purest, noblest character. Man must 
believe himself to be a citizen of God's wide uni- 
verse, a fellow of the immortals, an heir of the 
eternities, before it is possible for him to enter 
into that fullness of life and attain to the stature 
of that manhood that belongs to him of divine 
right. Narrow his thought of himself and of his 
environment, and of necessity you detract from 
the measure of his life. Take from him his be- 
lief that he is a son of God, convince him instead 
that he is only a well-formed clod stirred into con- 
sciousness by the mystic touch of an impersonal 
force, substitute the lower for the higher faith, 



168 CONQUERING FORCES. 

and sooner or later he will cease to deport him- 
self as the citizen of a royal realm and will join 
the mad scramble for the main chance in a world 
that has no higher motto than, "Eat, drink, and 
be merry, for to-morrow we die." 

Trust in the personal Christ is of even greater 
value than the holding of a sound Christian phi- 
losophy. Salvation by faith is not a strange 
teaching, not a figment of theology, but a blessed 
fact of human experience. Sometimes, and in 
some sense, we are saved by faith in man. In 
that hour when our steps had well-nigh slipped, 
when the waves of doubt and distrust had almost 
swept us from our feet, it was confidence in some 
good man, in some pure and loyal woman, that 
steadied us until the darkness was overpast. 
While some passing cloud obscured the Polar 
Star by which we guide our course, it was a hu- 
man torch that cast its light upon our way. How 
much more shall the living Christ, who "never 
leaves us nor forsakes us," give us strength and 
courage for life's sorest conflicts. Assure me 
that he lives, and I shall live. It is worth some- 
thing to hold such teachings and trust in such a 
Person. What unappropriated, unrealized wealth 
is there for you and me in Christian faith ? 



THE VALUE OF FAITH. 169 

2. This faith is valuable as the basis of social 
order and the condition of moral progress. It is 
the civilizing and the uplifting power that has been 
moving through two millenniums of Christian 
history. Its impress is on the progress of the 
world. Its spirit, in some measure at least, is 
written in the constitution of every civilized na- 
tion and lives to-day in every institution designed 
to bless our fellow-men. And this is not a strange 
thing; it is not the result of some inexplicable 
movement of Providence. Because this faith up- 
lifts and transforms the individual man, it uplifts 
and will uplift and transform the human race. 
The Christian conception of man's relation to 
God his Creator and to man his brother, its mes- 
sage of truth, its standard of morality, its incen- 
tive to righteousness, and its spirit of charity — 
these are the indispensable conditions of highest 
moral development and the necessary bases of 
enduring social order. A great State, permanent, 
progressive, helpful to its citizenship in all things, 
cannot be maintained in disregard of these great 
principles. If we as Christians and patriots would 
throw safeguards about our homes, our Church, 
our State, if we would protect and perpetuate 



170 CONQUERING FORCES. 

these institutions that we hold dearer than life, 
we must build into the fabric of our social life, 
our national life, these principles that constitute 
the warp and woof of Christian faith. I do not 
mean that the Church is to enter the realm of sec- 
ular affairs. She is not to leave her God-given 
gospel of grace and salvation to discuss questions 
that are purely social or economic. The Church 
as such is not to solve the race problem or the 
labor problem or the wealth problem; her first and 
great concern is with the man problem. It is the 
high mission of the Church to win men to Jesus 
Christ, to inspire them with faith in his teachings 
and loyalty to his purposes, to give them the 
Christ view of duty and of service, and then send 
them forth to their work in the world. Ever- 
more the Word must be made flesh in order that 
the world may be saved. Christian manhood in 
the social world is our great need to-day. Give 
us Christian men as the heads of our factories, as 
presidents of our banks, as the managers of our 
great corporations, as the leaders of our labor 
unions, as officers of our State, as voters at our 
ballot boxes — give us Christian men to fill these 
positions and direct these interests and the ship 



THE VALUE OF FAITH. iji 

of State will move in safety on her way to a bet- 
ter civilization. Jesus Christ, living in and work- 
ing through men of Christian faith, must save this 
world. How much this faith is worth to the world 
to-day, how much it is to be worth in the days to 
come, no mind can grasp, no tongue can tell. But 
all this tide of wealth turns back to enrich the life 
of each individual. The blessings of a mighty 
civilization belong to us to-day. My person is 
protected, my home is secure, my life is enlarged 
by fellowship with cultured minds and noble 
spirits because this faith is in the world. It is of 
value, inestimable value, to you and to me here 
in this present world. 

3. But this faith is also of value because of its 
outlook on the future. I shall net now discuss 
the doctrine of man's future life, the reality and 
blessedness of "the inheritance of the saints in, 
light." All that I steadfastly believe. But I wish 
to remind you of the present value of Christian 
faith, because of its inherent optimism for the 
individual as well as for the race, because of the 
confidence with which it looks to the future that 
stretches out before us. Man's pilgrimage on the 
earth is brief at most. Soon the end must come. 



172 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Beyond roll the limitless ages. We ignore this 
fact; we shut our eyes and refuse to see it, but 
ever and anon truth, grim and stern, confronts us 
in the way and forces upon us the sense of our 
mortality. Sometimes the waves sweep in from 
that unseen sea, and as they beat about us we 
catch the echoes that come from far-off shores. 
Who of us has not been impressed and startled by 
these visions and voices that come from the eter- 
nity close at hand ? To the eye of sense there is 
nothing beyond — all is dark. But Christian faith 
turns its face toward that darkness and beyond 
the shadows sees the headlands of a better world 
and confidently looks "for a city which hath foun- 
dations, whose builder and maker is God." Earth- 
ly motives lose their power. "This world, he 
cries, is not my home ; I seek my home in heaven." 
In this confidence men live and toil and die. They 
are strong to endure and to achieve because of 
this faith. The true believer walks with steady 
step to the opening portals of the eternal future 
with no fear in his heart, but with songs of hope 
bursting evermore from his expectant spirit. This 
faith does rob death of its sting and the grave of 
its victory. We know that to be true. It has 



THE VALUE OF FAITH. 



173 



been demonstrated ten thousand times. It is 
worth something to live with a faith like that. 
The death-conquering faith of St. Paul in the 
hour of his departure was worth more in itself, 
than the crowns of all the Csesars. This faith is 
more precious than tested gold. 

And so beside the Silent Sea 

I wait the muffled oar ; 
No harm from Him can come to me 

On ocean or on shore. 

I know not where His islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond His love and care. 



THE LIVING CHRIST AND THE 
WORLD'S HOPE. 



"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath be- 
gotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ from the dead." (i Pet. i. 3.) 



VIII. 

THE LIVING CHRIST AND THE 
WORLD'S HOPE. 

THE Bible is a wonderful Book, wonderful 
in many ways; in no way more wonderful 
than in its constant spirit of hopefulness, its ir- 
repressible optimism. Christianity is a religion 
of hope. No other system of teaching paints on 
a scale so large or in colors so dark the nature 
and power of evil, and yet no other makes such 
confident and splendid predictions of the final 
triumphs of truth and the ultimate reign of 
righteousness. Its golden age is yet in the fu- 
ture. Ours is, indeed, a gospel of good news — 
a message of hope for the human race and for 
each individual soul. St. Peter, therefore, is in 
perfect accord with the spirit of all Scripture 
when he begins his epistle with an exultant note. 
Immediately after his salutation he gives thanks 
to "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" 
for the glorious hope of believers, and all his ar- 
guments, his expositions, his exhortations are in 
12 (i 77 ) 



178 CONQUERING FORCES. 

an optimistic vein. And he was not irrational in 
the processes of his thought. His was not a blind 
optimism. The hope of which he speaks, the hope 
of Christianity, has an ample foundation. It is 
supported by eternal truths; it is buttressed by 
mighty facts ; it is based on the great fact of the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. It 
is not possible for us to overestimate the greatness 
of that fact in itself or its importance in relation 
to Christian faith. It is a marvelous teaching that 
we are asked to accept. It is not strange that 
men are slow to believe in the resurrection of 
Jesus when they look at it as an isolated fact. But 
in reality it is not isolated. Before it is the su- 
perb life, the matchless character of the Man of 
Nazareth. It would be strange if he could die 
and perish utterly. After it is the wonderful 
power that has been wielded by Jesus since his 
death. It would be strange, indeed, if the great- 
est moral movement in the world's history, the 
greatest uplifting force ever felt by human life, 
were based on a false foundation and that a sin- 
gle error had done more for the elevation of the 
world than all truth ever did. However, it is not 
my purpose to-day to attempt to establish, either 



THE LIVING CHRIST. 179 

by evidence or argument, the fact of the resur- 
rection of our Lord. Above this fact is the living 
God. Why should it be thought a thing incredible 
that God should raise the dead? Let me direct 
your thought to the significance of this great fact. 

It is the final and divine attestation of the teach- 
ings of Jesus. It is God's seal to the truth of the 
gospel. Above all, it demonstrates and illustrates 
the supremacy of life over death. 

It is the assurance given to the world of a liv- 
ing, an everliving, Christ. The Church is not 
commissioned to proclaim and men are not asked 
to receive a dead, but a living Redeemer and 
Lord. The only Being that can save the world 
or satisfy the soul of a single individual is the 
living Christ of to-day. "If Christ be not risen, 
then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also 
vain." 

A divinely attested gospel and an everliving 
Christ are the teachings of the fact of the resur- 
rection of Jesus, and by this transcendent and 
significant fact "God has begotten us again unto 
a lively hope," a living hope. The risen Christ 
and the world's hope is the teaching of our text. 

I. The living Christ is the only sufficient basis 
for our hope in the world's moral progress. 



180 CONQUERING FORCES. 

No student of history can be indifferent to the 
conditions in the midst of which we live to-day. 
Vast and startling changes have taken place in 
the recent past. They still occur. I need not 
name them — they are manifest on every side and 
in every department of human life. They may 
have been evolutionary in their character; they 
are certainly revolutionary in their effects. And 
we may be sure that other and equally momentous 
changes are yet to come. The world cannot, will 
not stand still. What will be the final result of 
it all? We know that other civilizations have 
existed, have grown great, and have perished. 
Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, with 
teeming multitudes, with mighty forces, with am- 
bitious spirits, each in its day was as confident of 
permanence, thought as little of decline and ex- 
tinction as we do to-day. Shall our history dif- 
fer from theirs? Shall we escape the rocks on 
which they were wrecked and go on to greater 
power and mightier achievements? The history 
of the past helps us to solve this problem of the 
present. The experience of centuries has verified 
the truth of holy writ. "Righteousness exalteth 
a nation." Only righteousness can permanently 



THE LIVING CHRIST. igx 

exalt any people. Evil is self-destructive, at least 
it is destructive of the individuals and organiza- 
tions in which it exists. It may endure for a time, 
it may grow great and become defiant, but its end 
is sure. The civilizations of the past perished 
because of the evils that were within them. If 
ours is to survive and go on to greater glory, it 
will be because evil is restrained and righteous- 
ness is enthroned in the lives of men. But if evil 
is subdued and righteousness becomes regnant 
in the earth, it will be through the pozver of Jesus 
Christ. Victor Hugo said: "Undue devotion to 
the material is the peril of the world." To rem- 
edy that evil, he said we must pour ^Eschylus and 
Isaiah and Juvenal and Dante and Shakespeare 
into the life of mankind. We must put the ideal 
into the real, the spiritual into the material. That 
is well. But the supreme need of our civilization 
is that Jesus Christ, his spirit, his truth, his faith 
in God, his loyalty to righteousness, his sympathy 
for men, shall be poured into the stirring, throb- 
bing life of this twentieth century. Jesus alone 
can save the world, even in this large sense. Jesus 
must be the world's King of kings, and love must 
be the world's law of life, if humanity is to enter 



182 CONQUERING FORCES. 

the fair fields of the opening future and possess 
the glorious heritage of a redeemed race. I am 
an optimist because I am a Christian, and for no 
other reason. I believe in the moral progress of 
the world because I believe in the saving power 
of the living Christ. There is no other rational 
ground for such hope. 

II. The living Christ is the basis of our hope as 
individuals in this present life. 

Temptation, difficulty, and sorrow are the com- 
mon lot of mortals here below. We know that full 
well. None can hope to escape. Who of us knows 
what the future holds in store, even this side the 
grave? Our hope for guidance in life's uncer- 
tainties, our hope for deliverance from life's sore 
trials, our hope for sustenance in life's deep sor- 
rows, is based on our faith in the living Christ, 
on him who is "a present help in time of trouble." 
I know there are men without faith who pass 
through the experiences of life with becoming 
fortitude. Stoicism may steel the heart; unbe- 
lief may deaden the sensibilities; only faith in 
Christ gives cheer and comfort to the soul in its 
distress. Hope sings its song of joy in the heart 
that trusts. 



THE LIVING CHRIST. 183 

Sin is also the common experience of men. We 
have done wrong. Guilt attaches to us. Con- 
science accuses us. Be still, shut out the clamor- 
ous voices of earth, hear the convicting voice of 
conscience, and we are powerless to escape. As 
easily could we pluck the stars from their places 
in the sky as remove the facts of our sinful past. 
Must we carry forever through life and into the 
great beyond the consciousness of guilt, the sense 
of stain ? Will the voice of accusation never be 
hushed and the soiled life never be clean? Who 
shall deliver us from the body of this death? 
Our hope, our only hope, is in the living Christ. 
He is the only, but, thank God, the all-sufficient 
Saviour from sin. Our hope is in him. 

III. It is especially true that the living Christ 
is the basis of our hope in the eternal future. 
That is the specific teaching of our text. 

The world, with its growing civilization, its 
ever-increasing powers, with its startling changes 
and brilliant achievements, will soon leave us be- 
hind in its onward march. Just as we are in some 
measure prepared to take part in its great move- 
ments, we must lay down our tasks and go hence. 
As life for us grows larger and deeper and gives 



1 84 CONQUERING FORCES. 

promise of some worthy fruition, death draws 
near. Just before us rolls that dark and silent 
stream at which all journeys end. More and more 
it comes to our view. Have you begun to count 
the years that are before you ? Ten, twenty, thirty 
years, and then shall come the end? It is not 
far. What is beyond? What of the future? 
"Shall we meet beyond the river?" Is our song 
and our dream of a "home over there" only a 
dream? or is it fashioned of fact and based on 
the everlasting truth of God? "If a man die, 
shall he live again?" This becomes a question, 
not for academic discussion, but one of tremen- 
dously practical import. Science is dumb in the 
presence of this problem. It belongs to a region 
she cannot enter. Philosophy alternately doubts 
and hopes. If we say, "It must be so," it is not 
because there has been found explanation of the 
mystery of death or demonstration of the per- 
sistence of life, but because the soul of man feels 
its need and asserts its right to a larger life than 
earth can give. We turn to the records of our 
race and find that men always and everywhere 
have had some sort, some measure of faith in a 
life beyond. Individuals may disbelieve, but no 



THE LIVING CHRIST. 185 

race, no age has been without some sort of faith. 
I cannot believe that the heart of the race has 
been deceived in its deepest instincts, that this in- 
destructible desire for life, "more life and deeper," 
is never to be realized. But "life and immortality 
are brought to light in the gospel." God has be- 
gotten us again to a living hope by the resurrec- 
tion of our Lord. Jesus speaks the final word of 
hope, and back of that word is the mighty fact of 
his own glorious triumph over death. Standing 
beside the open and empty grave, with the powers 
of endless life pulsing in his own being, he said 
to the disciples who stood about him and to be- 
lievers of all ages : "He that liveth and believeth 
on me shall never die. . . . Because I live, ye 
shall live also." "If we believe that Jesus died 
and rose again, even so them also which sleep in 
Jesus will God bring with him." Our resurrec- 
tion is as sure as the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
It is as sure that we will live beyond the grave as 
that Jesus lives to-day. Our hope is in him. 

This is the Christ of the gospel, the Christ who 
offers himself to us to-day — the risen, living 
Christ. Accept him as your Saviour, obey him 
as your Lord, enter and enjoy the blessed fellow- 
ship of the Son of God. 



THE ULTIMATE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN 
OPTIMISM. 



"And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of 
God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost 
which is .given unto us." (Rom. v. 5.) 



IX. 

THE ULTIMATE BASIS OF CHRISTIAN 
OPTIMISM. 

IN this opening paragraph of the fifth chapter 
of Romans St. Paul presents to our view a 
number of the cardinal virtues of Christian life, 
a cluster of jewels as they shine in the crown of 
Christian experience: faith, peace, joy, patience, 
fortitude, and hope. In the midst of his great 
argument he pauses to dwell for a moment on 
one of these — hope. He points to the great 
basic truth on which it rests, out of which it 
springs. He indicates the spirit that animates it, 
that gives to it vitality, and declares in confident 
terms its stability. This "hope makes not 
ashamed," does not disappoint, is sure of realiza- 
tion. In another place Paul tells us that we are 
"saved by hope" — saved from despair and 
strengthened for conflict — while in that great 
psalm of love, the thirteenth chapter of First 
Corinthians, in his statement of things that abide, 
hope has a place between faith and love. 

(i8 9 ) 



190 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Optimism, a hopeful view of man and the 
world, is one of the marked features, perhaps the 
crowning distinction, of divine revelation. It is 
everywhere and always manifest. In the day of 
man's first transgression, even before the flam- 
ing sword had been set to bar his return to para- 
dise, there was given a promise, indistinct but 
real — how fully understood we cannot tell — that 
a Deliverer should arise; and the closing utter- 
ances of the sacred canon are jubilant with an- 
thems that celebrate the complete redemption of 
the world and the final victories of truth and 
grace. And in all the intervening chapters, rec- 
ords of the intervening centuries, may be heard 
the full, clear note of unconquerable hope. The 
truth of this general proposition is so evident 
that particular statements are scarcely necessary 
either to establish or to illustrate it. 

Israel's hope in the beginning was largely na- 
tional. It looked for the fulfillment of the well- 
nigh limitless promises made to Abraham, the 
great founder and father of the Hebrew nation. 
They failed, and perhaps we should not be sur- 
prised that they did fail, to grasp the spiritual 
content of those great assurances given to pa- 



THE ULTIMATE BASIS. 191 

triarchal faith. After Israel was fully estab- 
lished and had passed through the varying for- 
tunes of her earlier history, it became evident to 
the more clear-eyed of her sons — those men of 
vision, the prophets — that their anticipations of 
earthly power and material splendor were not to 
be realized in her national history. Then hope, 
because it would not die, must perforce become 
more spiritual. Therefore in the middle and lat- 
er years of Hebrew history there was develop- 
ment, advancement along two distinct lines : hope 
for the individual and a more spiritual hope for 
the nation. Hope for the individual became more 
definite. Man's personal relation to a personal 
God was more fully known, and in consequence 
he became more hopeful as he faced the adverse 
conditions of life or looked on the dark face of 
death. This growing hopefulness finds expres- 
sion in many of the Psalms and in the later proph- 
ets. There was also enkindled spiritual hope for 
the nation — hope for the enrichment of the moral 
life of the people as a whole. Righteousness be- 
gan to be put above power, and the favor of 
God was seen to be better than dominion over 
men. This is the spirit of Messianic prophecy, 



1 92 CONQUERING FORCES. 

and in its utterance Old Testament inspiration 
reached its loftiest note. 

It is more difficult to state in brief terms the 
optimism of the New Testament. Here hope for 
the individual, hope for the Church, hope for the 
kingdom of God, hope for the world rings in ev- 
ery chapter. Paul was a great optimist, as were 
his associates in apostolic service. Despair had 
no place in the vocabulary of the saints. Hear 
some of his great declarations: "I can do all 
things through Christ which strengtheneth me." 
"All things work together for good to them that 
love God." "He is able to keep that which I have 
committed unto him against that day." "Every 
knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess 
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the 
Father." Creation itself shall be redeemed from 
the bondage of corruption and come into the free- 
dom of the children of God. And so through all 
the volume of revelation the optimistic note is 
heard. Christian life to-day, in so far as it is vi- 
tal, in so far as it is Christian, is optimistic. 

Let us consider with some care the ultimate ba- 
sis of Christian optimism. 

I. Christian optimism is not based primarily 



THE ULTIMATE BASIS. 



193 



upon the gracious teaching of the Holy Scrip- 
tures. The Bible is not the foundation of the 
believer's hope. Hope is sustained, cheered, 
strengthened by these "exceeding great and pre- 
cious promises," but does not rest upon them as 
its ultimate basis. In a very large and true sense 
the Bible is the fountain of Christian experience. 
In a still larger and truer sense it is the product 
and record of religious experience. Hope was 
in the heart of devout men who knew and trust- 
ed God before it found expression in the immortal 
words of holy writ. The Bible is an inspired rec- 
ord of the religious experience of the most reli- 
gious of our race. Gracious promises glow on 
these treasured pages because hope was in the 
experience through which God gave his revela- 
tion to mankind. 

2. Christian optimism is not blind or irrational. 
Not for one moment is it unmindful of those facts 
and forces that are in deadly antagonism to right- 
eousness and moral progress. It sees and pro- 
claims the existence and power of moral evil in 
the world. It offers no formal philosophy of 
evil, but points unerringly to the black and omi- 
nous fact. It is not a cry of "Peace, peace," when 
13 



I 9 4 CONQUERING FORCES. 

there is no peace. It does not seek to promote 
righteousness by ignoring the reality of sin or to 
enlarge the realm of life by hiding the face of 
death. Furthermore, it frankly faces and every- 
where declares the fact of human freedom — 
man's power to choose his own course and to di- 
rect his own conduct — and never does it seek to 
evade the implications of that tremendous truth. 

3. The ultimate basis of Christian optimism is 
deeper and surer than any of these things. It is 
found in the nature of the eternal God himself. 
If we would know what kind of world this is to 
be, or if we would forecast the course of history 
and predict the destiny of man, we must know 
the character of the God who created the world, 
who redeemed mankind, who governs all things. 
The language of the Psalmist is profoundly true : 
"Our hope is in God." The teaching of Paul re- 
corded elsewhere is in accord with deepest truth 
— man without God has no hope. From the be- 
ginning knowledge of God has been the basis and 
measure of the believer's hope. As that knowl- 
edge increased, hope was enlarged, its content 
was enriched, and the strength of its foundation 
was more fully perceived. In Christianity opti- 



THE ULTIMATE BASIS. 195 

mism comes to fullest flower because to it has 
been intrusted God's final revelation of himself 
to the world. Christianity bursts into songs of 
hope because it holds in the very heart of its 
faith the assurance that Love is enthroned in the 
universe. God reigns over all, and God is love. 

This is Paul's teaching in the passage before 
us; and his array of facts is orderly and prac- 
tical, an ample foundation for his splendid con- 
clusions. 

I. The historic revelation of God's love for 
mankind is in his gift of Jesus Christ for our re- 
demption. Here we have one of the fullest, 
strongest statements of that truth that ever came 
from the lips of man : "When we were yet with- 
out strength [when we were helpless and hope- 
less], in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: 
yet peradventure for a good man some would 
even dare to die. But God commendeth his love 
toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, 
Christ died for us." That is the corner stone of 
all Christian faith, the great central fact about 
which universal history converges and from 
which the world's great moral movements pro- 



196 CONQUERING FORCES. 

ceed. It is supposed that our age in some pecul- 
iar sense demands the practical — that truth, if 
men are to accept it, must be put in terms that 
can be grasped and understood. Too often that 
temper is only a demand that great facts be 
dwarfed to the measure of our small intellects. 
But there are some facts that cannot be dwarfed. 
You cannot put the Alpine peaks into a frame and 
hang them on your wall. You cannot put the 
Pacific Ocean into a quart measure and study it 
in your laboratory. You cannot put the incarna- 
tion, the crucifixion, the ascension into the cate- 
gory of commonplace things that can be measured 
and defined and fully understood. The Infinite is 
eternally infinite, and we are only finite. But 
God's revelation is practical. Divine truth is 
brought within the compass of human thought. 
The mind of man has never conceived a method 
by which God's love could have fuller, more 
practical, more impressive manifestation than in 
his gift of himself in Jesus Christ. In Bethlehem 
and on Calvary God was expressing himself to 
the world in simplest terms. Jesus Christ, his 
incarnation, his passion, his ascension, his inter- 
cesion is the historic revelation of God's love for 



THE ULTIMATE BASIS. 197 

man, the great foundation truth on which rests 
the hope of Christian faith. 

II. But Paul speaks of an experimental verifi- 
cation of this truth in the heart of the believer. 
Hope is confirmed, made sure "because the love 
of God is shed abroad in our hearts," is flooded 
forth in the inner man "by the Holy Ghost which 
is given unto us." This truth, which is too large 
to be fully grasped by the unaided intellect, is 
made vivid and vital by the illumination and wit- 
nessing power of the blessed Spirit. God, who 
in the beginning said, "Let there be light: and 
light was," now speaks in the heart that trusts, 
and the world of truth is made to shine with a 
radiance that was never seen on land or sea. 
Psychological science may not be able to classify 
such knowledge as this, but there are tens of 
thousands of devout souls who can testify that 
the great truth which had historic revelation in 
Jesus Christ is filled with new life and clothed 
with augmented power when seen in the light of 
the indwelling Spirit — when such assurance is 
shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost. 
Thus Christian optimism becomes much more 
than a doctrine of the Bible; it is the experience 



198 CONQUERING FORCES. 

of the believer akin to that which burned in the 
hearts of Paul and John and those other heroes of 
faith, who knew God and dared to hope for all 
that love could give, with the full assurance that 
"hope maketh not ashamed/' 

III. This truth, greatest of all truth revealed 
to man, does not explain all the mysteries of 
faith, but it brings to us a twofold assurance and 
provides for hope a sure foundation: 

1. All power is in subjection to Love. The 
mystic and mighty forces that pervade the uni- 
verse, that grip worlds, that guide systems, that 
bind all things to the throne of the Eternal — 
these are not lawless forces. Love rules over 
them all. Omnipotence is under the sway of in- 
finite compassion. Power will be used to its ut- 
termost in the interest of the highest well-being 
of man. "All things work together for good to 
them that love God." We may not know how ; 
Paul did not know. He knew only that the God 
who gave his Son for our redemption will "with 
him freely give us all things." 

2. But there is a realm where power as such 
may not enter : the realm of free spirits, of unco- 
erced wills, the home of virtue, the world of mor- 



THE ULTIMATE BASIS. 199 

al action — power may not venture there. The 
will that is sacred from the touch of mere power 
freely chooses in view of motives, and love is the 
greatest of all motives. All the forces that move 
the material universe could not have created the 
character of Paul, but the "love of Christ" con- 
strained him. Where Omnipotence must pause 
love goes forward. Power cannot make right- 
eousness in the world, but love is leading in the 
upward path. Power may not coerce the will of 
man ; but love may touch the heart, and man free- 
ly walks in virtue's way. Where the mighty arm 
of power fails, the broken heart of love moves on 
to larger achievement. O love divine, how great 
thou art ! Sovereign art thou in that world where 
only motives rule ! 

Here is the basis of Christian optimism. And 
this basis fails not. Changes may dismay us, 
clouds may hide the stars, but love still holds the 
throne. 

God's in his heaven — 

All's right with the world! 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 



"Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilder- 
ness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted 
forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hun- 
gered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If 
thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be 
made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, 
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word 
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the 
devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him 
on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, If thou 
be the Son of God, cast thyself down : for it is written, 
He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and 
in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time 
thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto 
him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord 
thy God. Again, the devil taketh him up into an ex- 
ceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the king- 
doms of the world, and the glory of them ; and saith 
unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt 
fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, 
Get thee hence, Satan : for it is written, Thou shalt wor- 
ship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 
Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and 
ministered unto him." (Matt. iv. i-ii.) 



w 



X. 

THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 

E read that the first Adam was tempted in 
paradise with every external inducement 
to obedience. He yielded to temptation, and by 
yielding forfeited for himself and his posterity the 
blessed estate in which he was created. Paradise 
was lost. The second Adam was tempted in the 
wilderness with the strongest external induce- 
ment to disobedience. He overcame temptation 
and by his victory began the work of restoring the 
blessedness forfeited by the fall. Paradise was 
regained. 

The doctrines we have held concerning the 
person of Christ — doctrines declaring and defin- 
ing his deity — while in themselves of supreme 
value, have yet tended to prevent, or at least 
make difficult, a full appreciation of the reality 
and significance of Jesus. This experience of 
our Lord had its theological significance, its 
teaching of divine things; it had its human side 
as well. It was an experience in the life of a 
young man as he stood on the threshold of his 

(203) 



204 CONQUERING FORCES. 

career and looked out on the opportunities and 
responsibilities that were before him. Since it 
pleased God to reveal himself to the world in a 
hitman life, it is through the experiences of that 
life that were human as well as divine that we 
must find our way to the mind and heart of the 
Eternal. Some one has said that the temptation 
of Jesus occurred in a region that reason cannot 
traverse, and one that inspiration has but faintly 
illumined ; therefore the spirit of reverent in- 
quiry rather than of dogmatic affirmation should 
characterize the discussion of this subject. It is 
in such spirit and from such point of view that 
I desire to study with you to-day this wonderful 
chapter in the most wonderful life that this world 
has known. 

If we study this record aright, I think we shall 
find that there were presented to him, as there 
are presented to us, two life plans, two programs 
for a career in this world — one of them divine, in 
accord with the will of God, the other selfish and 
diabolical in its character. 

What was the real nature of the temptation of 
Jesus? It is not possible for us to know fully 
and definitely the consciousness of Jesus, espe- 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 



205 



daily during those earlier years of his silence. 
Into the depths and reaches of that world of life 
and spirit we fain would look, but cannot. Was 
he from the beginning fully conscious of his 
Messiahship ? Did he as a child, as a youth, as a 
young man know all the depths of his own na- 
ture and all the magnitude of his earthly mis- 
sion? To such questions I will not venture a 
dogmatic answer. That he was "very God" I 
devoutly believe and hold with ever-increasing 
assurance. But he was God manifest in the flesh 
— manifest under such conditions and with such 
limitations as were necessary in order to a real 
union with human life. That he increased in 
wisdom and in favor with God and men, the in- 
spired evangelist distinctly affirms. We must 
believe that he learned from his mother some- 
thing of the sacred mystery of his birth, and 
doubtless such knowledge stirred his soul as hu- 
man soul had never been stirred. But I am more 
and more disposed to believe that prior to his ex- 
perience at the Jordan the young man from Naz- 
areth did not fully know the nature and extent 
of his mission in the world. But from that hour 
he knew. In that hour the deep but possibly 



206 CONQUERING FORCES. 

vague and voiceless intimations of his own great 
nature were interpreted and confirmed by voices 
from without. John, the great prophet of Is- 
rael, announced him. The voice from the upper 
world proclaimed his divine sonship and the Fa- 
ther's approval of his life. The Holy Spirit, in 
unusual measure and with visible manifestations, 
descended and abode on him. These were not 
merely spectacular incidents for the edification 
of men; they had their deep and vital meaning 
for him. From that hour he knew himself and 
his mission. He v/as conscious of the power 
with which he was endowed, and from that hour 
he went forth to the solitudes of the wilderness 
and to the awful ordeal of his temptation. 

His fast of forty days indicates and is ex- 
plained by his mental state at that time. It was 
not mechanical or by rule. His soul was so deep- 
ly stirred by convictions and revelations that came 
to him, if not for the first time, at least with a 
force and fullness not known before, that phys- 
ical wants were wholly forgotten. He "after- 
wards hungered" is the significant language of 
the evangelist. Going from that experience by 
the Jordan, knowing himself possessed of pow- 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 207 

ers in keeping with a nature so deep and a mis- 
sion so great, it is not strange that "he was led 
of the Spirit into the wilderness," away from all 
human associations, that he might face and solve 
the mighty problems that pressed upon his spir- 
it. The greatness of the work that was before 
him, the multitude and magnitude of the difficul- 
ties to be met, the tragic price that must be paid 
for success, the dazzling glory of possible results 
that shone beyond — all these must have pressed 
upon him with overwhelming force. Such an ex- 
perience made possible — aye, it made certain — 
the temptation through which he passed. 

It is worth while to observe that Jesus was 
not tempted to commit gross sin or, indeed, to do 
anything that was wrong in itself. Such a young 
man was above the reach of many temptations. 
You can judge a man by his temptations. It is 
not wrong in itself to make bread of stones or to 
leap from high places or to rule great kingdoms. 
Under some conditions and for some purposes it 
would be right and noble to do such things. The 
temptation was to do those things from selfish 
motives rather than enter upon other and higher 
work required by the will of God and the need 



2o8 CONQUERING FORCES. 

of the world. In the language of Dr. Fairbairn : 
"What is temptation but the struggle of the con- 
science in favor of the more ethical as against 
the more expedient policy?" The good is the 
enemy of the best. 

To my mind, the very essence of the temptation 
of Jesus was the misuse of the pozver of which 
he was the conscious possessor. When he went 
from his baptism at the Jordan, he was fully con- 
scious that he possessed superhuman power, mi- 
raculous power. That was clearly involved in 
his endowment as the Messiah, a part of his pos- 
session as the Son of God. How much it meant 
to be conscious of the possession of such power, 
to have omnipotence in subjection to his will, we 
cannot even imagine. One question must come 
to him and of necessity be answered by him: 
How was such power to be used? Around that 
question the battle of the wilderness was to be 
fought. The Satanic suggestion was: Use it 
for yourself. The suggestion was veiled — ex- 
pressed in seductive form — but in whatever form 
expressed it meant just that. 

I. He was hungry. He craved food with all 
the intensity of a sound body that had passed 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 2 og 

through weary weeks without nourishment. Ev- 
ery depleted nerve and every wasted tissue cried 
out for bread. "If thou be the Son of God, com- 
mand that these stones be made bread." "Bread ! 
bread !" — the cry of every fiber of his physical 
being. If ever there was an opportune hour for 
such a suggestion, surely it was then; but it 
meant that the marvelous powers of mind and 
spirit should be subordinated to the service of 
the body. There were other means by which 
bread might be obtained, and was obtained. The 
power that might have transformed the stones 
of the wilderness into bread for a hungry body 
was sacred to a higher work for which God 
had sent him into the world. 

2. The second temptation was: "Cast thyself 
down from the pinnacle of the temple." It is 
probable that the Jews gave a literal interpreta- 
tion to the language of Malachi and believed — 
some of them at least — that the Messiah would 
suddenly descend from the skies and manifest 
himself to the people of the temple. Satan's sug- 
gestion was like this: "You are not known to 
the priests and the scribes, nor to the multitudes 
in Jerusalem. Go to the temple's summit and 



210 CONQUERING FORCES. 

cast thyself down — suddenly descend among the 
people, in accordance with the popular expecta- 
tion, and at once take your place as the Messiah." 
The knowledge that he possessed such power and 
his desire that the people should receive him as 
God's anointed gave point and force to the temp- 
tation. 

3. The third temptation was the master stroke 
of Satan. It was that divine power should be 
used for political ends, and by such use gain 
earth's widest, greatest empire. The Messianic 
ideals of Judaism were that the coming One 
should be a mighty King, adding to the power of 
David and the glory of Solomon such splendid 
qualities of mind and heart as the world had nev- 
er seen. It was natural, it was inevitable that 
such an ideal should appeal to the mind of Jesus 
and that he should be tempted in consequence. 

Was that the way in which his work should be 
wrought and his mission fulfilled? He knew 
that he possessed powers unmatched by mortal 
man. In their use he could grasp the scepter of 
v/orld-wide empire. He needed only to throw 
himself at the head of his people and use his su- 
pernatural resources for the realization of their 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 211 

dreams of the glory of the Messiah's reign. The 
thought was that he should be not only the great- 
est but the best king the world had known. 
Doubtless the splendid ideals of the seventy- 
second Psalm and of Isaiah's Messianic predic- 
tions were present in his mind. He would redress 
all wrongs, guarantee all rights, deliver the inno- 
cents wherever downtrodden and oppressed, bid 
evil in every form yield up its power and slink 
away to its home in darkness. Satan suggested 
that all this was possible. It looked so. Who 
will say that it was not so ? It was far above the 
level of mere lust for empire. It was a vision to 
tempt the Son of God himself. 

But that was not the life plan of the Father in 
heaven. Splendid as it appeared, it was only Sa- 
tan's program for a great life. The only right 
use of power is in accordance with the will of 
God and for the well-being of the human race. 
Mere self-aggrandizement for one's own sake, 
however veneered with plausible pretensions, is 
earthly, sensual, devilish. Self-consecration for 
the sake of others is divine; there is nothing di- 
viner than that on earth or in heaven. Jesus 
never departed from that principle. Marvelous 



212 CONQUERING FORCES. 

as were the powers that he possessed, more mar- 
velous was his use of those powers. Not once 
was his power exercised for the gratification of 
a selfish desire or for the promotion of a personal 
end. Always and everywhere his mighty works 
were manifestations of a miraculous energy, mov- 
ing in response to the behests of an infinite com- 
passion. And this unmatched, unapproached self- 
restraint is the crowning glory of the Master's 
life, the supreme evidence of his divine nature. 
Power to work miracles was necessary in order 
to this highest manifestation of the God-life in 
the Man of Nazareth. 

The response of Jesus to the solicitations of 
Satan in the hour of temptation reveals a law of 
the eternal kingdom. Ultimately all power is 
subject to love, and is for the promotion of right- 
eousness. Man is beginning to know something 
at least of the powers that are ever active in un- 
seen realms about him. With the eye of science 
he looks into the heart of the world, into the se- 
cret depths of the universe, and sees the mighty 
forces that hold the planets in their grip and 
guide shining systems in their way. But the 
Christian knows that power is not lawless. The 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 213 

universe is not a huge, lifeless machine, grind- 
ing on with relentless movement to an inevitable 
end. Over all, controlling all, directing all is the 
righteous God, and we "know that all things work 
together for good to them that love him." No 
sparrow falls without his knowledge. God's 
kingdom ruleth over all, and God is love. 

This law of the eternal kingdom revealed to us 
in the life of the divine Man is for the guidance 
of human life, for nations and for individuals. 
The world's greatest temptation to-day is not un- 
like the temptation of our Lord : it is the tempta- 
tion that comes from the consciousness of power. 
Never before did man possess such powers as are 
his to-day. The laws of mind are known in some 
measure at least. The forces of nature are har- 
nessed for his service. Winds, waves, steam, 
electricity are his slaves. The power of knowl- 
edge, the power of wealth, the power of organiza- 
tion and cooperation — these belong to man to- 
day as never before. Scarcely any task is too 
great to be undertaken; scarcely any is too diffi- 
cult to be accomplished. Continents are spanned ; 
oceans are girded ; the atmosphere is made to vi- 
brate with our messages. What will the world 



214 CONQUERING FORCES. 

do with its power? On the answer to that ques- 
tion the destiny of our civilization depends. The 
Satanic suggestion is ever with us, urged on by 
a thousand voices and in a thousand ways. Ex- 
pend these great powers for selfish ends, subor- 
dinate the higher to lower interests, make bread 
and build kingdoms, feed the body, and minister 
to the pride of life; but the divine law, the law 
made luminous and glorious in the matchless life 
of our Lord, abides until this day. Love, serv- 
ice, sacrifice mark the path of safety, the path 
of true progress, the only path that leads to en- 
during glory. 

But this great law of the kingdom has its in- 
dividual application. The question that came to 
the Son of Man in the wilderness comes to every 
one of us as we stand on the threshold of man- 
hood. It is a question that never leaves us un- 
til life's sacred trust is yielded up at the end of 
earth's pilgrimage. Each is the possessor of 
some measure of power — of more power, per- 
haps, than we are wont to think. The forces that 
belong to life, the energies of manhood, the out- 
come of our opportunities, the influences that are 
about us that are subject to human control — edu- 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 215 

cation, wealth, position — all these are in our 
hands. What will we do with them? Shall we 
adopt Satan's suggestion and use them for self- 
ish purposes? Shall we make the forces of the 
mind, the strength of the will, the passions of the 
heart minister to the desires of the lower nature ? 
Thousands are doing that to-day. Imperial in- 
tellects serve bodies akin to beasts. All too often 
are heaven's energies prostituted to the gratifica- 
tion of earthly desires. Could there be slavery 
more ignoble? Others have a higher goal in 
view, yet no higher than worldly ambition affords. 
Life's resources are devoted to the aggrandize- 
ment of self for selfish ends, to the acquisition 
of power, position, honor. This is the highest 
life plan that Satan can propose. "The pride of 
life" is higher than "the lust of the flesh;" but if 
it be for selfish ends, it is Satan's program, after 
all. Shall we adopt it and live by it? Let us be 
sure that we do not. 

There is a higher life plan than any of these — 
one that is in accord with the divine will; one 
that was illustrated in the life of our Lord. Je- 
sus was tempted, therefore he might have used 
his power to make bread for himself; but we 



216 CONQUERING FORCES. 

must believe that in that event he would have 
lived "by bread alone," and the world would nev- 
er have read the matchless story of his life or 
poured its treasures of faith and love in homage 
at his feet. He might have fallen in with the 
Messianic ideals of his age and founded an em- 
pire wider than Alexander's, more enduring than 
Caesar's, and far more righteous than either ; but 
he would have been only a greater Alexander, a 
more beneficent Caesar. He turned away from 
that first vision of empire, splendid and alluring 
as it was. He turned from the prospect of the 
greatest throne and the brightest crown that 
earth could offer to walk in the path of lowly 
service and self-sacrificing ministry. He "came 
not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to 
give his life a ransom for many." 

But as he walked in that self-chosen way of 
service there came to him a more glorious vision 
— a vision of empire wider, nobler, more endur- 
ing than Satan dared unfold before his mind in 
the hour of his temptation. It was a vision of 
the kingdom of God, founded on truth and love, 
established in the hearts of men, spreading 
through the nations, living through the ages, fill- 



THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS. 217 

ing the whole earth with the "light of the knowl- 
edge of the glory of God." Filled with the splen- 
dor of that vision while standing yet amid the 
shadows of the cross, he said to his fearful and 
downcast disciples : "I, if I he lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto me." His love had 
taken hold on the human race, and he felt the 
world yielding to his compassion. The ages have 
shown that his superb faith in himself was not 
groundless. Even now he is the world's greatest 
Leader and all-sufficient Saviour. Enthroned in 
the heavens, he is "Lord of lords, and King of 
kings," the exalted and glorified Son of the Al- 
mighty God. Love serves, and by serving con- 
quers. Love gives itself and gains the world. 
Consecration must precede coronation. 

"Whosoever will save his life shall lose it : but 
whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same 
shall find it." "Let this mind be in you which 
was also in Christ Jesus." 



THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 



"Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though 
God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's 
stead, be ye reconciled to God." (2 Cor. v. 20.) 



XL 

THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 

THE second epistle written by St. Paul to the 
Church at Corinth is devoted largely to a 
vindication of his position and authority as an 
apostle of Jesus Christ. Against the unscrupu- 
lous assailants of his character and his teachings 
he made a bold defense, and this most personal, 
and perhaps the most eloquent, of all his epistles 
is the result. A passage beginning with the four- 
teenth verse of the second chapter and ending 
with the fourth verse of the seventh chapter 
has been called the "great digression." It is easy 
for a casual reader to see how the narrative was 
interrupted by a statement of experience and how 
the reference to personal experience led to a dis- 
cussion of underlying and far-reaching princi- 
ples until in the fifth verse of the seventh chap- 
ter the narrative is resumed. In this passage we 
have the most impressive, the most extensive, 
and the most inspiring discussion of the Chris- 
tian ministry to be found in all the Bible. There 
is nothing comparable to it in the world's litera- 

(22T) 



222 CONQUERING FORCES. 

ture, sacred or secular. The text that I have 
read is at the very heart of this great discussion. 
Here the apostle touches the vital, throbbing cen- 
ter of the Church's life and of the pulpit's pow- 
er. Speaking for himself and his associates and 
successors in the great work in which he was en- 
gaged, the true "apostolic succession," he gives 
us the Pauline conception of the Christian minis- 
try. 

Without attempting an exhaustive discussion 
of this theme, I wish to consider some aspects of 
the truth suggested by the language of St. Paul. 

I. First of all, zve note that this is a divinely 
called ministry. The language used at once lifts 
the discussion out of the realm of the common- 
place. The Christian minister is an ambassador. 
His position is one of dignity and importance. 
His ambassadorship is from Christ, the living 
and eternal Christ, to the world, a sinful and re- 
bellious world. In this figure of speech a funda- 
mental truth is implied. Ambassadors are not 
self-constituted. They must be chosen and com- 
missioned by the sovereign powers whom they 
represent. This truth, implied if not expressed 
in the text, is recognized and emphasized through 



THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 223 

all the range of Scripture-teaching. The proph- 
ets of old were called of God to be his spokes- 
men to the nations. Abraham and Moses and 
Amos and Isaiah went forth to their great work 
and uttered their burning messages because they 
carried in their hearts the commission of Jeho- 
vah. The Christian minister belongs to the order 
of the prophets ; he is a prophet of the kingdom. 
Paul interprets the marvelous features of his 
own life in harmony with this truth. Read his 
own account of that experience by the Damascus 
road — the splendid statement made in the pres- 
ence of Festus and his royal guests — and you 
will note that the chief thing, if not the only 
thing, that he remembered was that for this once 
Jesus appeared unto him to make him a minis- 
ter and a witness of the surpassing truths that 
came to him in that hour and that were to come 
to him in increasing volume in the after years of 
his life. This note rings in all his speech. He 
was an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God 
— called to be an apostle. And such experiences 
are not confined to the centuries of prophets and 
apostles, nor are they limited to the land of Pal- 
estine. In the hearts of living men there have 



224 CONQUERING FORCES. 

been wrought convictions deep and strong as life 
itself — convictions intuitively recognized as of di- 
vine origin; convictions that can be interpreted 
only as a call of God to the Christian ministry. 
This we know for ourselves. I will not now at- 
tempt to discuss the psychology of a call to the 
ministry — how the Divine Spirit awakens within 
or imparts to the soul of man a sense of this holy 
commission. I only insist that it is a truth set 
forth in Holy Scripture and verified by the expe- 
rience of living men. It may differ in form; it 
does differ in form from the call that came to Mo- 
ses and Isaiah and Paul ; but in essence it is iden- 
tical. The true minister of the gospel to-day car- 
ries to his work a profound and an abiding con- 
viction that he is called of the living God to this 
high service — that it is his divinely appointed 
life work to be Christ's ambassador to the world ; 
to speak to men of moral, spiritual, eternal 
things; to warn men of the evils of sin and tell 
them of their privileges as children of God; to 
proclaim the terms of pardon and lead the way 
to heaven. Such statements may seem common- 
place; they are not strange to our ears nor star- 
tling to our minds, but the truth they express is 



THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 2 2$ 

positively overwhelming when grasped in the 
fullness of its significance. Mortal man, commis- 
sioned of God, is an ambassador to his fellows, 
bearer of a message on the faithful delivery of 
which may hinge immortal destiny. Nothing less 
than such a conviction as this can awaken in the 
human heart motives adequate to such a minis- 
try as ours. "Now then we are ambassadors for 
Christ," as though God did speak to men by us. 

2. It is not less important that we have a cor- 
rect apprehension of the real purpose, the divine- 
ly appointed object of the Christian ministry. It 
is nothing less than the reconciliation of the 
world to the living God. He "hath given to us 
the ministry of reconciliation." The fact of the 
atonement and the necessity for it is unmistak- 
ably taught in the Holy Scriptures. The sacri- 
fice of our Lord, that supreme expression on Cal- 
vary's cross of the Eternal Spirit, had objective 
value as well as subjective power. Our inability 
to grasp the full meaning or to formulate a sat- 
isfactory philosophy of that great fact must not 
blind us to its reality and its power. In some 
profound way the death of Jesus expressed the 
depths of divine being, and was so related to the 
15 



226 CONQUERING FORCES. 

divine nature or the divine government as to 
make possible the forgiveness of human guilt 
under a government of flawless righteousness. 
Who shall venture to say that the atonement is 
not an eternal fact in the divine nature, manifest 
to the world in the fullness of time? But in this 
passage the apostle speaks chiefly, if not wholly, 
of the potency of this great transaction on the 
manward side, of its influence in reconciling man 
to God. 

The world's alienation from God is attested by 
every page of human history, and is a present ex- 
perience in the heart of the race. Men are indif- 
ferent to God, their Creator and Lord. They 
are ungrateful to God their Redeemer and Pre- 
server. They are rebellious against God, their 
rightful Sovereign, ignoring his authority and 
transgressing his laws. There is antagonism — 
deep-seated antagonism — in the human heart 
against the living God, else why this awful curse 
of sin that blackens the life of the world to-day? 

The redemption of the world is an accom- 
plished fact, the glorious achievement of our dy- 
ing Lord. The reconciliation of the world is a 
fact yet to be accomplished, and this is the mighty 



THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 2 2? 

task committed to the ministry of the living 
Church. Ours is distinctively the ministry of 
reconciliation. Christian ministers are recognized 
as leaders in every great reform. They are cham- 
pions of civic righteousness and promoters of 
public morals. Every movement for the uplift 
of mankind may count on their hearty support. 
God forbid that it should ever be other wise. But 
our distinctive work is of a higher and more en- 
during character. It is not merely to work re- 
forms and create good morals; it is not only to 
win men for the Church and build up a great ec- 
clesiastical organization; it is not chiefly to im- 
part information and increase the world's store 
of knowledge. All this we do and ought to do, 
but man's personal relation to God is our chief 
concern. It is our mission to persuade men to 
banish indifference, to renounce their antago- 
nism, to come with humble penitence and simple 
faith and make their peace with God. This work 
is to be world-wide, as far-reaching as the human 
race itself. If one repentant sinner awakens joy 
in the presence of the angels, how ought your 
heart and mine to be stirred as we dwell on the 
fact that we are called of God to win a world for 



228 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Christ! This is the divinely appointed object of 
the Christian ministry. For this we are called of 
God. When any lower motive controls, then are 
we robbed of our power, then are we disloyal to 
our Lord and to our brothers. 

3. The divinely appointed object of a divinely 
called ministry can be accomplished only by the 
faithful delivery of a divinely given message: 
"That God was in Christ reconciling the world 
unto himself." An alienated world is to be rec- 
onciled to its Creator and Lord. In countless 
multitudes of individual hearts indwelling an- 
tagonism is to be overcome by conquering love, 
and these individual victories are to be multiplied 
until our race renounces sin and renews its alle- 
giance to the living God. The great movement 
for reconciliation originates in and proceeds from 
the divine heart. "God, who is rich in mercy, for 
his great love wherewith he loved us, even when 
we were dead in sins," was moved with compas- 
sion and came to our deliverance. The world's 
reconciliation will be accomplished by a larger, 
deeper, truer knowledge of God. Human antago- 
nism to divine authority and indifference to di- 
vine love will be overcome by a manifestation of 



THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 229 

divine goodness, and man can only have this 
knowledge of God as they see him revealed in 
Jesus of Nazareth. 

Paul was not unmindful of a revelation of God 
in the material universe. The invisible things 
of him, even his eternal power and Godhead, 
were made manifest by things which do appear. 
"The heavens declare the glory of God ; and the 
firmament showeth his handiwork." The great 
apostle recognized the movements of a divine 
hand in the midst of human history. He who 
"made of one blood all nations of men" had also 
fixed their times and determined their bounds. 
They had not marched across the wide field of the 
world's life but by his appointment. He also 
knew full well that the "still small voice" of the 
Eternal is heard in the silent chambers of the 
human soul, and utters there a law as imperious 
as that which came from Sinai's smoking summit, 
a law by which men judge themselves and by 
which men are to be judged. 

But all this knowledge of the divine wisdom 
and power is insufficient for the work of salvation. 
It is only in Jesus of Nazareth that the world re- 
ceived that knowledge of God which subdues the 



230 CONQUERING FORCES. 

heart and transforms the life of man. (< God was 
in Christ." "God was in Christ reconciling the 
zvorld unto himself." We must see Jesus to know 
God — see him standing amid the experiences of 
life; standing just where you and I stand, a man 
among men, battling with temptation, contending 
with difficulties, enduring privations, misunder- 
stood and misjudged, yet with purity untarnished 
and patience undisturbed. "God was in Christ 
reconciling the world unto himself." See him en- 
gaged in his works of mercy. Lepers appeal to 
him for help. He touches the miserable sufferers 
with the finger of his pity, and sends them re- 
joicing on their way. He meets a mother going 
to the grave of her only son; he is moved with 
compassion for her; the omnipotent will obeys 
the heart throb of an infinite tenderness and gives 
her back her child. An outcast woman, full of 
sorrow and penitence, weeping over the grave of 
buried purity, mourning the death of womanly 
innocence, stands humbly at his feet. He throws 
over her life the white mantle of his forgiving 
love, and fills her heart with the benedictions of 
his peace. That is God's zvay. "God was in 
Christ reconciling the world unto himself." See 



THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 23 1 

him on the way to the cross. He is trying to do 
his people good, but they persistently misunder- 
stand him and cruelly reject him. He gathers 
about him a few friends for fellowship and for 
service, but one of them sells him for the price of 
a slave, and the others forsake him in the hour 
of his peril. Conscious of the rectitude of his 
life and the benevolence of his purpose, he is 
charged as a common criminal and condemned by 
a corrupt tribunal. He staggered through the 
shadows of Gethsemane and died amid the hor- 
rors of Golgotha. Out into the darkness, out 
into that black gulf of mystery and pain where 
even the Father's face was invisible he carried 
the burden of our guilt. "God," our Creator and 
Lord, "was in Christ," showing to the world how 
much more he is than Creator and Lord, that by 
the depth of his love and the tenderness of his 
compassion he might reconcile the world unto 
himself. Can human hearts receive such knowl- 
edge without surrendering all antagonism to such 
a God? Shall not our heart cry out even now, 

"I yield, I yield; 

I can hold out no more : 
I sink, by dying love compelled, 
And own thee conqueror ?" 



232 CONQUERING FORCES. 

This, my brethren, is our message to the world. 
By the power of this truth men are to be recon- 
ciled to God. With a message so great intrust- 
ed to our keeping, with interests so tremendous 
depending on its faithful delivery, we dare not 
be disloyal to our trust. 

A few years ago a Chinese prince was sent to 
Germany to apologize on behalf of his nation for 
the murder of the German Minister in Peking in 
the summer of 1900. The hoary empire of the 
East, in the person of that piince of the royal 
line, abjectly apologized to the German nation for 
the cowardly murder of Von Kettler. It was 
not the Chinese prince that apologized, but the 
Chinese nation speaking through his lips. So the 
true minister of Christ speaks not for himself, 
but for his Lord. It is heaven's embassy to 
earth, "as though God did beseech you by us." 
Can the minister thus commissioned to speak for 
Christ dare to speak for himself? Solemnly 
charged with the interest of the kingdom, can 
he, dare he forget his high mission and seek the 
promotion of ends that are personal and selfish? 
God save us from such negligence and give us to 



THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. 233 

appreciate the meaning of that ministry to which 
we are called! 

It is not less important to those who hear. 
With the words of a man you might afford to 
trifle. His arguments you might combat and his 
opinions you might reject ; but when the faithful 
minister of Christ speaks, it is the message of the 
Eternal Father to your heart. Heed that word 
to-day. "We pray you in Christ's stead, be ye 
reconciled to God." 



A DIVINE VIEW OF HUMAN LIFE. 



"For the kingdom of heaven is as a man traveling into 
a far country, who called his own servants, and delivered 
unto them his goods. And unto one he gave five talents, 
to another two, and to another one; to every man ac- 
cording to his several ability; and straightway took his 
journey. Then he that had received the live talents went 
and traded with the same, and made them other five 
talents. And likewise he that had received two, he also 
gained other two. But he that had received one went 
and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. After 
a long time the lord of those servants cometh, and reck- 
oneth with them. And so he that had received five tal- 
ents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, 
thou deliveredst unto me five talents : behold, I have 
gained beside them five talents more. His lord said unto 
him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou 
hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee 
ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy 
lord. He also that had received two talents came and 
said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents : behold, 
I have gained two other talents beside them. His lord 
said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; 
thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make 
thee ruler over many things : enter thou into the joy of 
thy lord. Then he which had received the one talent 
came and said, Lord, I knew thee that thou art a hard 
man, reaping where thou hast not sown, and gathering 
where thou hast not strewed : and I was afraid, and 
went and hid thy talent in the earth : lo, there thou hast 
that is thine. His lord answered and said unto him, 
Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I 
reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not 
strewed : thou oughtest therefore to have put my money 
to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have 
received mine own with usury. Take therefore the tal- 
ent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten tal- 
ents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and 
he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not 
shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast 
ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there 
shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matt. xxv. 
14-30.) 



w 



XII. 

A DIVINE VIEW OF HUMAN LIFE. 

E ought to be constantly and profoundly 
grateful to God for his gift of a divine 
revelation. There is so much that we desire to 
know, so much that we need to know and yet can- 
not know of ourselves. We investigate and we 
speculate concerning the important things of life, 
but there is so much of uncertainty in the con- 
clusions reached that in more thoughtful mo- 
ments we are deeply conscious of our need of the 
solid rock of assured Truth on which to base our 
faith and rest our hopes. This sure foundation, 
this immovable basis is found in what Mr. Glad- 
stone happily called the "impregnable rock of 
Holy Scripture." Here we have what purports 
to be and what we devoutly believe to be the 
final, unchangeable word concerning the being, 
the duty, and the destiny of man. We need the 
certainties of Revelation in order to understand 
and appreciate the significance, the full meaning 
of human life, the practical, everyday lives that 
we are living. 

(237) 



238 CONQUERING FORCES. 

In this parable that I have read and from 
which our text is taken we have a presentation 
of some of the aspects of human life, some phases 
of its opportunities and responsibilities, as seen 
through the eyes of Jesus Christ. It is a picture 
of human life from the point of view of the Son 
of God. 

It is important that we endeavor to look on 
human life from God's viewpoint because of the 
drift of the world's thought to-day. A tendency 
is manifest almost everywhere to consider the 
interests and issues of human life, largely, if not 
solely, with reference to things tangible and tem- 
poral — worldly interests, worldly positions and 
possessions, without due regard to things that are 
spiritual and eternal. 

Let us study this parable as a divine view of 
human life. 

The particular aspects of the subject that I 
wish to present are suggested by four words : 
Investment, Responsibility, Fidelity, Reward. 
All that I shall attempt to say to you will only 
be an amplification and application of the truth 
contained in these terms. 

1. We are taught, first of all, God's investment 



A DIVINE VIEW OF HUMAN LIFE. 239 

in human life. "He called his own servants, and 
delivered unto them his goods." To one he gave 
five talents, to another two, and to another one — 
to every man according to his several ability. Or, 
to express the same matter in our terms, he gave 
to one about five thousand dollars, to another 
about two thousand dollars, and to another some- 
thing near one thousand dollars. Taking into 
account the greater value of money in those days, 
we see that it was no inconsiderable trust that 
was committed to those servants. God intrusts 
with us, invests in us the talents we possess — the 
powers, the capacities, the opportunities that be- 
long to us as human beings. Body, mind, heart, 
our position in the world, our possessions of 
whatever sort — these constitute, in part at least, 
the talents received by us from the Father's hand. 
Let us not forget that these gifts that enrich our 
lives and that ought to enrich the world are from 
God. 

Let us take account of ourselves for a mo- 
ment. It is not by any choice of ours, nor can 
we believe that it is by chance, that we live and 
are who and what we are to-day. Whether of 
Anglo-Saxon blood or otherwise, whether man 



2 4 CONQUERING FORCES. 

or woman, whether born in poverty or reared in 
affluence, whether blessed with genius or blight- 
ed with dullness — these are matters in which we 
have had no choice and over which we have ex- 
ercised no control whatever. It may be said that 
natural laws and secondary causes have played 
their parts in making us what we are, and that is 
true. But natural laws are God's laws, existing 
and operating because he ordained them and for 
the accomplishment of his purpose. Secondary 
causes rest on primary causes, and each is a link 
in a chain that reaches back to the great First 
Cause. Our talents are none the less from God 
because they come to us through the operation of 
his laws. 

"The undivineness of the natural is the great 
heresy of popular religious thought." (Bowne.) 
Life as it is, whether with five talents or with 
one, is received by us and should be regarded as 
a trust from the Almighty Father, to be held and 
used according to his will. The powers and op- 
portunities belonging to men may differ ; they do 
differ, we know. But each life represents a di- 
vine investment — an investment from which God 
expects returns, for which he will require an ac- 



A DIVINE VIEW OF HUMAN LIFE. 241 

count. Life sometimes seems meager and bare. 
Especially is this true of those of us who have 
passed the earlier stages of the journey. The en- 
thusiasm and optimism of youth give place to so- 
berer sentiments. We sometimes feel the drudg- 
ery and dreariness of a seemingly commonplace 
existence, but in reality no life is commonplace 
unless we choose to make it such. Each has its 
hours of tragic interest and its place of high priv- 
ilege ; each has its wealth of undeveloped powers 
and its wide-open door of gracious opportunity. 
Though we are the children of a moment, swung 
for a little time between two eternities, a bound- 
less past and a limitless future ; though our pow- 
ers and opportunities are coupled with ignorance 
and frailties, yet out of this investment that God 
has made in us much may come — much of char- 
acter and achievement, much for the enrichment 
of the world's life, much for the enhancement of 
the divine glory. We talk of talented men; all 
men are talented. Each has at least one talent, 
and that is God's gift. 

2. This divine view of human life emphasizes 
man's responsibility to God for God's investment 
in man. 
16 



242 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Life in this world is not an evil to be endured, 
as the pessimists would have us believe ; it is not 
a trifle to be squandered, as thousands seem to 
think, It is a sacred trust, to be held and used 
for our fellow man according to the will of God. 
The wickedness of the unfaithful servants was 
not in the misuse but in the disuse of his talent. 
It was not squandered ; it was only buried. Fail- 
ure to use and improve the gift received was the 
essence of his guilt. We bury our talents at our 
peril. It means loss, and it means sin. Think 
of the loss sustained by individuals, by the world, 
by God's kingdom because of the multitudes who 
bury their talents instead of using them ! 

We are wont to speak of the undeveloped re- 
sources of the material world, of the wealth bur- 
ied in our unworked mines, of possible harvests in 
our untilled plains, of the unused power in our 
mighty rivers ; and such wealth is vast beyond all 
computation. But vaster far is the world's unde- 
veloped intellectual, moral, and spiritual wealth — 
the treasures of character and of service, of wis- 
dom and love in the unused talents that God has 
given to his servants. Think of men and women 
with minds capable of knowing and planning; 



A DIVINE VIEW OF HUMAN LIFE. 



243 



with hearts that ought to be the home of broadest 
sympathies, of noblest emotions and divinest im- 
pulses; with wills free to choose and strong to 
decide — think of beings thus splendidly endowed 
who are allowing their talents to remain unused, 
burying them in the rubbish heap of an idle life. 
It is loss — immeasurable, irretrievable loss — to 
the world and to God. How ought we to be 
ashamed of ourselves that we have made such 
poor use of the talents that God has given to us ! 
The world needs all the possibilities that God has 
put in us. We have no right to leave unused and 
thus to waste that which God bestows. To be 
less than the best that is possible to us is wrong. 
It is sin. Many of us are lean of soul, lacking 
in spiritual life and power because we are guilty 
of the sin of talent-burying. 

But if this view of life adds to our sense of 
responsibility, it also enlarges its meaning and 
increases its sanctity. It means much to live. If 
the boatman who carried Caesar and his fortunes 
was nerved to greater effort by a sense of his re- 
sponsibility, shall not we be inspired to utmost 
endeavor by a knowledge of the trust that God 
our Father has committed to us? 



244 



CONQUERING FORCES. 



3. God's supreme requirement of man is fidelity 
— the faithful use of the talents bestozved. 

The servant who gained five talents and the 
one who gained two were equal in the fidelity 
displayed and equal in the reward received. Had 
the man with one talent been equally faithful, he 
would have received equal commendation and re- 
ward. The possessor of one talent and the pos- 
sessor of five talents cannot be equal in brilliancy ; 
but they may be equal in fidelity, and in God's es- 
timate fidelity is better than brilliancy. Fidelity 
is one of the noblest of virtues, and, like all best 
things, is within the reach of all men. 

We are not responsible for successes beyond 
our reach. The man with one talent is not re- 
quired to gain five. Experiences unattainable by 
us are not required of us. We sometimes dream 
of knowledge and faith and love larger, deeper, 
diviner than we can know while we dwell in the 
flesh. In our better moments we aspire to 
achievements more splendid in their character 
than are possible to us, just as a little child will 
stretch out its tiny hands to reach the stars. My 
little boy once said: "Father, I would like to 
have a star to hold in my hand." I doubt not 



A DIVINE VIEW OF HUMAN LIFE. 245 

but that these stirrings of soul, these outgoings 
of the heart are the premonitions of a larger life 
that shall be given to God's children in another 
world. But these things are not possible to us 
now, and therefore we are not responsible for 
them. 

The powers that we possess to-day, the oppor- 
tunities that are ours to-day, the blessings that 
God so lavishly pours into our lives to-day — it is 
the faithful use of these that God requires. Un- 
swerving and untiring fidelity amid the ordinary 
conditions of life is the highest order of attain- 
ment and of service. It may appear common- 
place to the world, but it merits the plaudits of 
the angels and receives the commendation of the 
Almighty. We turn our faces toward the future. 
To those who are young it seems to stretch far 
away and is brilliant with the full-orbed stars of 
hope and promise ; to others there are the length- 
ening shadows of the passing day and the premo- 
nitions of the evening time. Whatever the future 
may hold, whether it be long or short, whether it 
shall bring us to positions of conspicuous service 
or lead us in lowly paths where we must toil apart 
from the publicity of the world's vision — what- 



246 CONQUERING FORCES. 

ever the future may hold, wherever it may lead, 
let fidelity be first in thought and first in life. 
Heroism is none the less heroic because the world 
knows not of it. The truly loyal life is the truly 
royal life. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I 
will give thee a crown of life." 

4. Now a word in reference to reward. 

Those servants received their reward and en- 
tered upon their true career after the return of 
their Lord. This life, after all, is for testing and 
development; it is the time and place of our pro- 
bation. The full measure of the reward is in the 
Father's hand, and will be bestowed in the Fa- 
ther's time. But the reward of the faithful serv- 
ant is not all in the future. Blessings abound in 
every day and brighten every stage of his pil- 
grimage to a better world. Two or three fea- 
tures of this reward are suggested : 

God's approbation: "Well done, good and 
faithful servant." It is perfectly natural and al- 
together right for us to enjoy the approbation of 
our fellow men. A good name is better than 
riches. To be indifferent to the esteem of our 
fellows indicates either hardness of heart or shal- 
lowness of mind. But human approbation is of- 



A DIVINE VIEW OF HUMAN LIFE. 247 

ten unjustly bestowed and quite as often unjust- 
ly withheld. How often are we misjudged, how 
often do we misjudge others — sometimes result- 
ing from our lack of knowledge, too often result- 
ing from our lack of charity ! Therefore we must 
not make our peace of mind dependent on the es- 
teem of men. Better than the commendation of 
our fellow men is the approbation of one's own 
conscience. The abiding consciousness of sincer- 
ity of purpose and integrity of character is the 
greatest boon possible in this world. But our 
judgment of self may be wrong. The mind may 
be biased and conscience perverted. "God is 
greater than our hearts and knoweth all things." 
Better than all else is his approval. He knows, 
and he is just as well as merciful. To carry in 
the heart the assurance that he approves our 
lives, not because of their perfection, but because 
of their sincerity and because of our trust in 
him — that assurance will fill the soul with song 
and give us strength for many a day of hardest 
toil. And then in the end, in the presence of an- 
gels and ransomed spirits, he will crown us with 
his approbation, saying, "Well done, good and 
faithful servant." 



248 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Reward also involves promotion — enlarge- 
ment of powers and increase of opportunities. 
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I 
will make thee ruler over many things." I do 
not know the depths and heights of meaning con- 
tained in these words, but they mean enlargement 
of life, increase of powers, broader spheres of 
activity. Life, more life and fuller, is our want. 
Life more abundant, eternal life will be God's 
gift to the faithful soul. The loyal soul of earth 
will stand amid the royal throngs of the eternal 
kingdom, made "meet to be partakers of the in- 
heritance of the saints in light." 

Reward also involves participation in the joys 
of our Lord. Into the deep joy of the nature of 
our God the faithful soul may enter and dwell. 



THE GREATNESS OF SERVICE. 



"They said unto him, Grant unto us that we may sit, 
one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left hand, 
in thy glory." (Mark x. 37.) 



XIII. 
THE GREATNESS OF SERVICE. 

AMBITION is said to be the sin by which the 
angels fell, and men are charged to "fling 
away ambition." If the term be used in the 
sense given to it by the lexicographers, then am- 
bition is always and altogether wrong. But like 
many another word, this one has been largely 
transformed by current usage. If by ambition 
we mean a strong desire and an earnest purpose 
to attain to high things and to achieve great ones, 
then ambition is wrong only when it is wrong — 
when the object sought is unworthy or the seeker 
is actuated by motives other than the highest. 

In the passage just read we have an account 
of two young men — two ambitious young men — 
who approached our Lord with a request that 
had in it a certain measure of audacity. Jesus 
had been talking much to them about a king- 
dom — the kingdom of God. He had been filling 
their minds with imperial ideas, and had quick- 
ened into new life the national ideals that were 
present, even if latent, in the heart of every loyal 

(251) 



252 CONQUERING FORCES. 

Hebrew. To be sure, they had not fully under- 
stood his teachings — very far from it — but they 
were sure that events were converging to a crisis 
and that marked changes were in the immediate 
future. On this day they came to Jesus and with 
some degree of hesitancy submitted their request : 
"We would sit, the one on thy right hand, and 
the other on thy left, in thy glory." Whatever 
were their conceptions of the kingdom he was to 
establish, in their thought greatness was asso- 
ciated with eminence of position. They aspired 
to greatness, to prominence in the kingdom of 
their Lord. What a tribute was their request to 
the teaching and influence of their Master ! Aft- 
er three short years of companionship with Jesus 
these fishermen were aspiring to be the associates 
and ministers of royalty. The surest mark of a 
great teacher is power to awaken in the minds of 
his pupils high aspirations and noble purposes. 
At least one feature of the conduct of these young 
men was most commendable. W T ith their aroused 
aspirations, with life's problems and life's possi- 
bilities looming large before them, they went di- 
rectly to Jesus with their requests. The imagi- 
nation cannot picture a more impressive scene 



THE GREATNESS OF SERVICE. 253 

than that : ambitious young manhood in the pres- 
ence of the Son of God asking for some high 
place in his service. It is not strange that our 
Lord gave forth in that hour the great teachings 
that are preserved for us in this passage. He 
gently but positively rebuked their spirit in so 
far as it was selfish and unworthy. He reversed 
ideals of life that had been current through the 
ages, and taught them and the world the nature 
and the quality of true greatness. The world's 
idea of greatness was associated with high posi- 
tions and great possessions — dominion over men, 
lordship over nations, power to direct the move- 
ments and control the destinies of individuals and 
of races. James and John, if not wholly pos- 
sessed of that ideal, were certainly not free from 
it. But Jesus said it should not be so among his 
followers. He would set up in the world a high- 
er and truer standard of greatness. "He that 
would be great among you shall be not lord, but 
servant; and he that would be greatest of all must 
be servant of all" I will not say that this is the 
greatest teaching that Jesus gave to the world, 
but surely in all the wealth of truth given for its 
enrichment there is none greater than this. 



254 CONQUERING FORCES. 

He taught those young men and the young 
manhood of the world that real greatness is in 
service. Most of us indulge, to some extent at 
least, in hero worship. The soul, unless it be 
dead, instinctively pays tribute to a great man. 
By great men we usually mean those who in war 
or politics, commerce or literature have forged to 
the front, grasping great power and reaching 
high place. The world's ideas of greatness cling 
to us still. But the greatest man in the world, 
according to Christ's estimate of greatness, is he 
who renders greatest service to the world, he who 
most fully expends his life in blessings on his fel- 
low men. Life is to be measured not by what we 
receive, but by what we achieve ; not by what we 
get out of the world for the enjoyment or the ag- 
grandizement of self, but by what we put into the 
world for the enlightenment and enrichment of 
mankind; not by the height of the position we 
gain, but by the loftiness of the life we live ; not 
by what the world thinks of us, but by what God 
knows about us. The one perfect illustration of 
this great teaching is found in the life of the 
Great Teacher himself. Mr. George J. Romanes, 
a distinguished scientist and author, said : "If we 



THE GREATNESS OF SERVICE. 2 $$ 

estimate the greatness of a man by the influence 
he has exerted over mankind, there can be no 
question, even from a secular point of view, that 
Christ was much the greatest man that ever lived." 
He was great in that he served. He built no 
city, he founded no state, he marshaled no armies, 
he wrote no book. He did none of those things 
that men commonly call great. In the wilder- 
ness he met the temptations that came to him as 
a young man. There were suggested to him life- 
programs, brilliant and attractive in appearance 
but satanic in character. He refused to build a 
kingdom after the fashion of the Caesars, choos- 
ing rather to establish an empire of love in the 
hearts of his disciples. He turned away from a 
promised throne to walk in the way that led to 
the cross. But as he walked in that lowly way 
of service, he reached the highest point of real 
greatness the world has ever seen. From the life 
as from the lips of our Lord we get the teaching 
of our text : Greatness is in service. 

I. Since this is true, let us consider what is the 
real meaning of service. 

Let us not get this great thought out of touch 
with real life. 



256 CONQUERING FORCES. 

1. The motive of service, the spirit that is 
back of all true service, is love. The Son of 
God was the great servant because God is love. 
Christian life is a life of service because love is 
the supreme law of Christian life. As we love we 
serve. We may confer benefits on our fellow 
man, our acts may be to the advantage of others ; 
but it is not service on our part, and therefore 
lacks the elements of greatness unless it springs 
from love. Our Lord gave to the world the 
great law of social service when he said to his 
disciples: "Love one another, as I have loved 
you." Such love must serve. Love, in the tru- 
est, deepest meaning of that great word, is not a 
passion for possession, but a passion for the en- 
richment, for the blessedness of the object loved. 
Hereby may we know love that is real and not 
a base counterfeit. Again I say, as we love we 
serve. Love itself is oft-times the greatest service. 
There are thousands in the world who do not 
need our bread or our instruction or our counsel, 
who yet need the warm outgoings of a kindly 
heart. 

2. The measure of service is life. The vol- 
ume and value of service are determined by the 



THE GREATNESS OF SERVICE. 257 

amount of life we put into it. "The Son of man 
came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, 
and to give his life a ransom for many." Those 
of you who are Bible students know that this is 
one of only two or three passages in the synoptics 
in which we are taught the great doctrine of 
man's salvation through the sacrifice of our Lord. 
Here it is taught incidentally, as it were. It is 
brought forth from the treasure house of truth, 
not for its own sake in this instance, but to illus- 
trate the place and value of service in the king- 
dom of God. The gift of life by us has none of 
the redeeming power that belonged to the sacri- 
fice of our Lord, but by this language we are 
taught the essential quality of service. He serves 
in the highest sense who gives his life. This does 
not mean dying, but living. Not life's surrender, 
but life's investment. Service has a thousand 
forms ; but as it has only one motive, and that is 
love, so it has only one measure, and that is life. 
This is no strange teaching. Nothing really great 
is accomplished except by the gift of life. The 
men who succeed, even by the world's standard of 
success, are men who put their lives into their 
work. Consecration, that great Christian term, 
17 



258 CONQUERING FORCES. 

only means life given to God for the service of 
our fellow men. 

3. The end of service is life given. Here 
again, as everywhere, Jesus illustrates his own 
teaching. He gave his life a ransom for many. 
Again, it is said that he came that his followers 
"might have life, and that they might have it 
more abundantly." He gave his life for the 
world, and by that act gave life to the world. So 
as we give life in service we impart life in bless- 
ing to others. The end of service is to increase 
and enrich the life of the world — not to supply 
wants, but needs. To 1 give bread and raiment and 
shelter to those who need is to serve, because by 
such gifts we add to life. To give knowledge, 
education, truth in any form is to serve, because 
in still larger measure do we thus add to life. 
To contribute to the pleasure of our fellows may 
be a service. It is if it adds to the purity or the 
strength of life; otherwise it is no service. To 
give Christ to the souls of men — Christ with all 
his saving grace, with all his treasures of truth, 
with all his wealth of love — that is greatest serv- 
ice because in that we add most to the volume 
and quality of life. We serve as we add to the 



THE GREATNESS OF SERVICE. 259 

best life of the world. If to make two spires of 
grass grow where only one grew before be a 
service to the world, how much greater the serv- 
ice when we help some soul into a purer, stronger, 
braver, truer life than could have been lived with- 
out our help. Thus do we lay up treasure in 
heaven. The man who loves, who gives his life 
and gives it in such a way that it is imparted in 
blessings to his fellow men has found the stand- 
ard of true greatness set by our Lord. Here is 
work great enough, here motives mighty enough. 
He has also found the secret of deep and abiding 
happiness. Happiness is not the end for which 
we are to strive. To have a good time is not the 
chief thing in this world. Realization of earthly 
ambitions is not of supreme importance. Cer- 
tainly pain, sadness, sorrow are not ends to be 
sought after. God delights in the joy of his 
children. But those who seek happiness as life's 
end never find it. They may find passing pleas- 
ure, but true happiness is found in nobler pur- 
suits. Joy is a flower that blooms beside the path 
of duty. The good and faithful servant enters 
into the joy of his Lord. 

II. Again, I wish to avoid getting this great 



2 6o CONQUERING FORCES. 

teaching out of the realm of actual living. Con- 
sider for a moment the opportunities for service, 
the wide field and the manifold forms of service 
that are about us to-day. We are getting away 
from the old idea that men can serve God only 
in the pulpit or in the cloister. The world of hu- 
man life is the arena for Christian achievement. 
Opportunities for service are greater to-day than 
ever before because men are living in a larger 
world and are endowed with greater powers. 
The secular world is being redeemed; rather we 
are learning that there is no secular world. The 
term is only one of convenience. We are com- 
ing to understand those great words of the Psalm- 
ist: "The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness 
thereof ; the world, and they that dwell therein/' 

Secular life is a field for service. Political 
life, commercial life, professional life, honorably 
pursued, afford magnificent opportunities for 
service to our fellow men. One of the greatest 
needs of our age is Christian manhood in public 
life — Christian men as political leaders, Christian 
men as commercial magnates, Christian men as 
the managers of our great corporations and the 
leaders of our labor unions. Christian manhood 



THE GREATNESS OF SERVICE. 261 

in such public positions will be worth more than 
a thousand panaceas for the ills of social life. I 
rejoice that the number of such men increases. 
I speak to-day to young men who are to be po- 
tent factors in the public life of Texas. I speak 
to young women who are to make the homes and 
influence the lives of the men who are to control 
great interests in our generation. More and more 
the sons and daughters of Southwestern* are to 
reach places of leadership in Church and State. 
I charge you to-day: Carry into whatever posi- 
tion you may be called to occupy the high ideals 
of service set forth in the teachings of the Son 
of God. 

The Christian ministry is a field for great serv- 
ice. I know that God must call men to this holy 
ofhce, else they assume in vain to discharge its 
sacred duties. Let not the loud notes of earthly 
ambition drown that still small voice that speaks 
from the inner world. Moral movements are the 
greatest movements of any age. Religious ideals 
are the highest ideals. Spiritual forces are the 
greatest forces. To be in league with such forces 

*This sermon was preached before the students of 
Southwestern University, Georgetown, Tex. 



262 CONQUERING FORCES. 

and toil for such ideals is life's greatest opportuni- 
ty. Never did the Christian ministry have less 
need for sluggards and dullards than it has to- 
day. Never was there greater need for strong, 
cultured, consecrated, courageous men. Evil in a 
thousand forms is to be overthrown. The world 
is to be delivered from its ignorance, its degrada- 
tion, its sin. O'ur Christ is to be crowned as 
"Lord of all." The Christian minister more than 
any other man has the privilege of serving and 
leading in movements so large as these. 

To live a true, faithful Christian life is in itself 
of incalculable benefit to the world. Indeed, the 
position occupied is of minor importance. How 
have unknown but faithful lives brightened the 
world ! How we have been cheered and strength- 
ened by them as we have come within the circle 
of their blessed influence ! 

The light that falls on the earth on a clear, 
starlit night is equal to one-twentieth part of the 
light of the full moon or six one-millionths of 
the light of the shining sun. But a part of that 
light comes from stars that are invisible, stars 
that were never seen by human eyes. Far away 
in the depths of space they shine, and a part of 



THE GREATNESS OF SERVICE. 263 

their light falls on the earth and brightens our 
pathway. All of us may serve in that way. "Let 
your light shine." Men may not see you ; history 
may not record your name ; but the world will be 
brighter, and our brothers and sisters will walk 
with safer steps in the way of their pilgrimage 
and the more easily reach that "city which hath 
foundations," because you and I have lived lives 
of fidelity and service. 



THE REST THAT JESUS GIVES. 



"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy- 
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, 
and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: 
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is 
easy, and my burden is light." (Matt. xi. 28-30.) 



XIV. 
THE REST THAT JESUS GIVES.* 

JUDGED by any standard we may choose, this 
is one of the great utterances of Jesus of 
Nazareth. It is an invitation wide enough to 
embrace every toiler and every burden-bearer of 
the human race. It is a promise great enough 
to meet the deepest needs and to fulfill the 
highest aspirations of the human soul. These 
words have additional significance when we re- 
member that they were spoken in the midst of 
conditions that were most discouraging — at a 
time of apparent failure in the life of our Lord. 
It was doubtless near the close of his Galilean 
ministry. The multitudes that at first had 
thronged about him to hear his words and wit- 
ness his works had gone away, sifted out by the 
searching character of his teachings. The cities 
wherein most of his mighty works had been 
wrought showed but scant sign of appreciation 

*This sermon was preached at Vanderbilt University 
commencement. 

(267) 



268 CONQUERING FORCES. 

and less sign of repentance. Galilee was increas- 
ingly indifferent. Jerusalem was persistently an- 
tagonistic. It required no prophetic eye to see 
the end. And yet in the midst of circumstances 
that must have pressed with terrific force upon 
the sensitive soul of Jesus he rose to the highest 
point of self-confidence and self-expression. In 
that hour of sore trial he gave utterance to truths 
and sentiments that have lived through the cen- 
turies and that to-day thrill the hearts of unnum- 
bered multitudes of his followers. 

Upon compliance with conditions enjoined, it 
is the promise of Jesus that he will give men rest 
— that they shall find rest for their souls. He 
seems to enjoin three things. At least his in- 
junction is expressed in a threefold way: Men 
are (a) to come to him, (b) to take his yoke 
upon them, and (c) to learn of him. I under- 
stand that the central, the essential condition that 
must precede the promised rest is that men shall 
learn of him — learn of him as men can only learn 
in the fellowship of service. It is true that we 
learn in order to serve ; knowledge finds its high- 
est use when wrought into conduct. But it is 
also true that men can best learn, that they can 



THE REST THAT JESUS GIVES. 269 

only truly and fully learn, in service. "If any 
man will do his will, he shall know of the doc- 
trine." In the crucible of life's experience all 
teachings find their final test, and from that cru- 
cible truth comes forth to shine in her own light. 
We must come to him and take his yoke upon us 
if we would learn of him and find that rest he 
promises to give. 

This passage, then, will justify two or three 
general statements — statements that will be 
found, I think, to be in harmony with the spirit 
of all the teachings of our Lord. 

I. Jesus of Nazareth assumed to be the world's 
Teacher. He certainly claimed to be, and we de- 
voutly confess him to be, much more than a 
teacher: the world's Redeemer and the world's 
Lord, but the world's Teacher as well; and it is 
of that that I would speak to-day. His teaching 
was marked by the absence of high-sounding 
words. His greatest thoughts were clothed in the 
garb of simple speech. I believe it was Pascal 
who said: "Jesus Christ speaks the greatest 
things as if he had never thought upon them." 
And yet underlying all his utterances, running 
through all his discourses, ringing in all his com- 



270 CONQUERING FORCES. 

mands was the bold assumption that he was the 
Teacher of universal and eternal truth. "All 
nations" are to be taught whatsoever he com- 
manded. "The gospel of the kingdom," as he 
sometimes styled his teaching, "shall be preached 
in all the world for a witness unto all nations; 
and then shall the end come." As if he would 
say that when his teachings have reached the last 
man and have expended the utmost of their pow- 
er in the world then the world's ultimate possibil- 
ities will have been realized and the last chapter 
of its history shall end. Without writing a sin- 
gle word or, so far as we know, enjoining the 
writing of a single word, he claimed immortality 
for his speech. The heavens and the earth shall 
pass away; the everlasting hills, the starry dome 
above our heads shall cease to be ; but his words 
shall not pass away. No far-off nation, no cen- 
tury yet unborn is beyond the reach of his au- 
thority or beyond the need of his compassion. It 
was a marvelous assumption. Even now it taxes 
the human mind to grasp the fullness of its 
meaning. And yet nineteen centuries of humani- 
ty's struggles and experiences, nineteen centuries 
of the world's changes and the world's progress 



THE REST THAT JESUS GIVES. 2 yi 

have justified the startling claim of this young 
man who came forth from Nazareth to teach the 
world. Thoughtful men, careful inquirers point 
to him as the pioneer of the world's faith and con- 
fess the inestimable value of his contribution to 
the world's thought: not only the value of new 
teachings given by him — ideas minted in the In- 
finite Mind and stamped with eternal values — 
but the breadth, depth, height, purity given by 
him to the world's earlier conceptions of God and 
of man, of life and duty and destiny. It is but a 
commonplace statement, and yet one that should 
receive all the emphasis that organized and unit- 
ed Christendom can give to it, that Jesus is still 
the world's Teacher and the world still needs to 
learn of him. The utterances of the Man of Naz- 
areth do yet instruct the race. His doctrines are 
not obsolete. The principles taught by him are 
as applicable to the problems of the twentieth 
century of civilization as they were to the simple 
needs of Judean peasant life. Men have yet to 
rise to his point of view, catch the breadth and 
sweep of his horizon, and grasp the greatness of 
his thought. Most of all, the world has yet to 
apply his teachings to its practical problems, 



2J2 CONQUERING FORCES. 

cleanse its defilements in the crystal currents of 
his truth, and weave his principles more fully 
into the fabric of its civilization. 

II. The assumption of Jesus to be the world's 
Teacher was followed by a second claim not less 
impressive, not less significant. He said that if 
men would learn of him, if they would under- 
stand and receive his teaching, they would find 
rest for the soul, rest for the life. Not the ease 
that comes from toil escaped, but satisfaction of 
mind, peace of heart and of conscience — rest 
that may go hand in hand with highest endeavor 
and be experienced in the midst of severest toil. 
However much Jesus may have meant to teach 
in this great passage, he certainly intended to 
teach and did teach that his words, the truth ex- 
pressed in his speech and revealed in his life, 
would satisfy the world, would give rest, peace to 
the anxious mind and burdened heart of the hu- 
man race. I have said that this is a wide invita- 
tion and a great promise. I want to remind you 
that it was also a very bold statement. It does 
not wait on future years for its fulfillment. It 
is destined to be challenged in every hour of the 
world's history. It is a promise that may be and 



THE REST THAT JESUS GIVES. 



273 



is being constantly tested in the deep experiences 
of human life, which in the very nature of the 
case is the only test by which the value of this 
teaching can be determined. Jesus says : "Come, 
take my yoke upon you; learn of me, and I mill 
give you rest." 

It requires no very wide acquaintance with the 
intellectual life of the world to give us some 
knowledge of the unrest that accompanies the 
decline of faith — something of the pain produced 
by doubt. The experience of Frederick W. Rob- 
ertson, that preacher whose genius illumined the 
middle decades of the nineteenth century and 
whose influence still abides in the pulpit of the 
English-speaking world, is familiar to most of us. 
I need not recite in this presence his struggle 
with doubt, his groping after truth and God 
while the shadows were thick about him. Wil- 
liam Kingdom Clifford, as his faith in God was 
perishing under the merciless strokes of his own 
argument, uttered a most pathetic cry : "The great 
Companion is dead." Mr. Romanes a third of a 
century ago, finding himself in unbelief, frankly 
confessed that it was with the utmost sorrow that 
he accepted the conclusions that he had reached. 
18 



274 CONQUERING FORCES. 

With his "virtual negation of God the universe 
had lost its soul of loveliness;" and as he con- 
trasted the "lonely mystery of existence with the 
hallowed creed which once was his, he felt the 
keenest pang of which his nature was suscepti- 
ble." Writing years afterwards, when he had 
found his way back to faith and to God, he bore 
witness to the widespread unrest caused by un- 
belief. Some of us have felt the approaches at 
least of the excruciating anxiety, the dread un- 
certainty that chills the soul when the eye of 
faith is dim, when the solid rock seems to yield 
beneath our feet and "tumble in the godless 
deep" and the specter of a spiritless universe 
casts its shadow across our way. In the midst 
of the "manifold temptations that try our faith" 
we sometimes lose our consciousness of the great 
Companion's presence. It is then that "my heart 
and my flesh cry out for the living God;" it is 
then that we realize how much we need the rest of 
truth — the rest that Jesus promised to give. 

I. The actual fulfillment in human life of this 
promise made by our Lord is made possible, 
by the authoritative character and the satisfying 
content of his doctrines. 



THE REST THAT JESUS GIVES. 275 

His teaching must not only be true, but I must 
know that it is true. No teaching, however pleas- 
ing in itself, can satisfy the mind unless it bears 
the unmistakable marks of certainty. Great as 
are the rational powers of man, mighty as have 
been their achievements, there are yet some 
themes upon which reason must speak with res- 
ervation. There are some depths which she has 
not yet sounded. There are heights to which thus 
far she has been unable to rise. Man by wis- 
dom has not known God ; he has not fully known 
himself. As one has said, "Existence is wrapped 
in a girdle of interrogations." Unable to know 
the "flower in the crannied wall, . . . root 
and all, and all in all/' he cannot, of himself, 
"know what God and man is." And yet these 
are matters of profoundest concern to thought- 
ful men; without this knowledge man cannot be 
at rest. We need that some one with authority 
shall speak and resolve all our doubts. The world 
will never be satisfied with anything less than 
truth avouched by divine authority. Any mes- 
sage that is to still the waves that surge and beat 
in human hearts must bear in some form the 
signet of the Almighty God. And this we re- 



276 CONQUERING FORCES. 

ceive when we come to Jesus Christ and learn 
of him. "He spoke as one having authority." 
We know something of the deep peace, of the 
unspeakable sense of security that fills the soul 
when we turn from the mists and fogs of merely 
human speculation and accept the simple yet sub- 
lime affirmations of Him who spake as "never 
man spake," and who "was declared to be the Son 
of God with power by the resurrection from the 
dead." It is then that we feel beneath us, under- 
girding our faith, the Rock of Eternal Truth. 

2. The teaching of Jesus not only has the ac- 
cent of certainty, the ring of final authority, but 
the content of his teaching satisfies the mind and 
gives rest to the heart. 

We can glance in only the briefest way at this 
phase of his teaching. 

(1) Consider for a moment his doctrine of 
man. It is true that he taught no formal, no 
scientific theory of human life; but his estimate 
of the nature and worth of man is manifest in all 
his teaching. It gleams on every page of the 
gospel. To him man was a being of inestimable 
value. Even the fallen — publicans and outcasts 
— might become the children of God and heirs of 



THE REST THAT JESUS GIVES. 2 JJ 

an everlasting inheritance. There are but two 
theories of human life current in the world to- 
day — at least only two that really challenge our 
thought. It does not now seem probable that any 
third theory should be seriously proposed. With- 
out attempting scientific exactness, we may call 
these the materialistic and the Christian theo- 
ries of human life. I shall not discuss these the- 
ories ; I only state them in a word. The material- 
istic theory of life regards man as the highest 
form of matter and force, the product of blind, 
impersonal, inexorable law, wholly material and 
necessarily unmoral in his nature, with no higher 
destiny when "life's fitful dream is o'er" than to 
sink back into the sum total of matter and force 
that make up the universe, or, as Mr. Tennyson 
expresses it, to "be blown about the desert dust, 
or sealed within the iron hills/' The other theory 
of human life, the theory that stands or falls 
with Jesus Christ, regards man as the creature 
of the Almighty God, spiritual and moral in his 
being, created in wisdom and crowned with love, 
immortal in nature, with heaven in sight and in 
reach, and yet with the depths of outer darkness 
as a possible destiny. These are the theories of 



278 CONQUERING FORCES. 

human life that are current in the world to-day, 
and consciously or unconsciously men are choos- 
ing the one or the other. The materialistic the- 
ory may convince the intellect, but it cannot sat- 
isfy the heart. It may crush, but cannot gratify, 
the higher and holier impulses of human life. 
And because it cannot satisfy the heart, I believe 
it will never permanently convince the mind. 
But in his better moments, when the soul is most 
alive, when the heart is filled with life's noblest 
desires, man longs to be and believes himself to 
be all that he is declared to be in Jesus Christ. 
The heart of humanity utters a deep though si- 
lent amen to the teachings of Jesus concerning 
man. 

(2) This great promise of Jesus is directly con- 
nected with his doctrine concerning God. He had 
just uttered that marvelous note of thanksgiving 
addressed to the "Father, Lord of heaven and 
earth," and had declared that "no man knoweth 
. . . the Father, save the Son, and he to whom- 
soever the Son will reveal him." Then he said: 
"Come and learn of me, and I will give you rest." 
We have here, I think, his highest thought con- 
cerning God : "Father, Lord of heaven and earth." 



THE REST THAT JESUS GIVES. 279 

His conception embraced the essential Father- 
hood of the universal Lord, the universal Lord- 
ship of the Father in heaven. Divine Fatherhood 
was the great teaching of Jesus. Perhaps it was 
not wholly new. It gleamed faintly on the sum- 
mits of Hebrew faith, but shone in noonday 
splendor in the teaching of the Christ. But the 
goodness of God was not exalted at the expense 
of his greatness. The Father in heaven is not 
less the Lord of all. Never before, I think, has 
the world needed this teaching of Jesus as the 
world needs it to-day. Man's point of view 
changes ; his thought has "widened with the proc- 
ess of the suns." The time was when men could 
believe in tribal deities, in gods with a "local hab- 
itation and a name." The recognition of Jehovah 
as the God of the whole earth, though taught 
from the first by Hebrew prophets, was a marked 
advance in the faith of the Jewish people. Now 
instead of a world we know systems of worlds, 
myriads of mighty systems. 

There was a time when men would not believe 
there were more worlds than they knew. Now 
men will not believe that they know all worlds. 
When the first telescope was constructed, men 



2 8o CONQUERING FORCES. 

would not readily receive the report given con- 
cerning the number and magnitude of the celes- 
tial bodies. Now when the mightiest glass has 
pierced the depths of space, revealing the inde- 
scribable glories of God's handiwork, men plan 
to build greater glasses that they may discover the 
worlds that are yet beyond. The time was when 
men held all movements, all events as the results 
of chance or as the acts of an arbitrary will. 
Now law stretches its domain as far as human 
thought can reach. Atoms are fashioned and 
worlds are governed according to law. Dew- 
drops form and shine, flowers bloom, men think, 
and systems sweep their mighty orbs according to 
law. A God who can command the faith and sat- 
isfy the mind of the world to-day must be a great 
God. Some men think they are skeptical now 
when they have only given up their little thoughts 
about God. And yet a God great enough to be 
the God of the universe as men now know the 
universe would terrify and overwhelm the soul 
of man if he were only great. The world needs 
to learn of Jesus Christ that the universal Lord 
is yet our Father in heaven, full of compassion 
and long-suffering toward the children of men. 



THE REST THAT JESUS GIVES. 281 

"The All-Great is the All-Loving too, and through 
the thunder," through the whirl and sweep of 
mighty systems, "comes a human voice, O heart 
I made, a heart beats here." Assure me that 
God is my Father, and then every broadened con- 
ception of his power will but deepen my sense of 
security and rest. It means much to kneel down 
on the earth as men now know the earth and look 
out into the universe as men now know the uni- 
verse, and yet be able to say with the simple faith 
of a little child: "Our Father which art in heav- 
en." This is our constant privilege, and thus we 
find rest for the soul. When we come to Jesus 
Christ, take his yoke upon us and learn of him, 
then "the peace of God which passeth all under- 
standing shall keep our hearts and minds through 
Jesus Christ our Lord." 

Lord, give us such faith as this ; 

And then, whate'er may come, 
We'll taste, e'en here, the hallowed bliss 

Of an eternal home. 
19 



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